LECTURES 


VERY  REV.  FATHER  Bl'RKE, 


JAS.    ANTHONY     FROri) 


The    English    Historian. 


:,1E,   TWENTY -FIVE    CENTS, 


PRINTED    : 
403   S/ 


LECTURES 


VERY  REV.  FATHER  BURKE, 


IN  REPLY  TO 


JAS.  A.  FROUPK, 


The     English    H  istorian. 


SAN  FRANCISCO  : 

PRINTED   BY    THE   CATHOLIC    PUBLICATION    CO. 

403  SANSOME  STREET,  CORNER  SACRAMENTO. 

1872. 


PUBLISHERS'    PREFACE. 


NO  course  -of  lectures  ever  delivered  in  America 
will  be  so  universally  read  as  those  delivered 
by  Father  BURKE,  in  reply  to  Mr.  FROUDE.  Most  of 
the  reports  published  in  the  newspapers  have  been  far 
from  complete,  but  few  of  them  having  room  for  such 
long  lectures  ;  neither  do  the  publishers  of  this  edition 
pretend  that  it  is  absolutely  correct,  but  they  have  got 
the  fullest  reports  possible.  These  lectures  will  soon 
appear,  there  is  no  doubt,  in  book -form,  but  it  is  the 
intention  of  the  CATHOLIC  PUBLICATION  COMPANY  to 
place  all  such  matter  within  the  reach  of  every  Catholic 
on  the  coast,  and  hence  they  have  issued  this  cheap 
edition,  and  do  not  expect  to  receive  for  it  but  a  very 
small  per  centage,  if  any  thing  more  than  the  absolute 
cost. 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  December,  1872, 


/ 


FIRST  LECTURE. 


THE    NORMAN    INVASION    OF    IRELAND. 

T  ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :— It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the 
1— i  old  battle  that  has  been  raging  for  seven  hundred  years 
should  continue  so  far  away  from  the  old  land.  The  question 
on  which  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you  this  evening  is  one  that 
has  been  disputed  at  many  a  council  board  —  one  that  has  been 
disputed  on  many  a  well  -  fought  field,  and  is  not  yet  decided 
—  the  question  between  England  and  Ireland.  (Applause.) 
Among  the  visitors  to  American  who  came  over  this  year,  there 
was  one  'gentleman  distinguished  in  Europe  for  his  style  of 
writing  and  for  his  historical  knowledge  —  the  author  of  several 
works  which  have  created  a  profound  sensation,  at  least  for 
originality. 

MR.  FROUDE'S  PURPOSE. 

Mr.  Fronde  has  frankly  stated  that  he  come  over  to  this 
country  to  deal  with  England  and  with  the  Irish  question, 
viewing  these  from  an  English  stand -point;  that,  like  a  true 
man,  he  came  to  America  to  make  the  best  case  that  he  could 
for  his  own  country  ;  that  he  came  to  state  that  case  to  an 
American  public  as  to  a  Grand  Jury,  and  to  demand  a  verdict 
from  them,  the  most  extraordinary  that  was  ever  yet  demanded 
from  any  people,  namely  :  the  declaration  that  England  was 
right  in  the  manner  in  which  she  has  treated  my  native  land  for 
seven  hundred  years.  (Applause.)  It  seems,  according  to 


this  learned  gentleman,  that  we  Irish  have  been  badly  treated — . 
that  he  confesses  !  but  he  puts  in,  as  a  plea,  that  we  only  got 
what  we  deserved.  (Laughter  and  applause. )  "  It  is  true, "  he 
says,  "we  have  governed  them  badly  ;  the  reason  is,  because  it 
was  impossible  to  govern  them  rightly.  It  is  true  that  we  have 
robbed  them  —  the  reason  is,  because  it  was  a  pity  to  leave 
them  their  own  —  they  made  such  bad  use  of  it.  It  is  true,  we 
have  persecuted  them  ;  the  reason  is,  persecution  was  a  fashion 
of  the  time  and  the  order  of  the  day."  On  these  pleas  there 
is  not  a  criminal  in  prison  to-day  in  the  United  States  that 
should  not  instantly  get  his  freedom  by  acknowledging  his 
crime  and  pleading  some  extenuating  circumstances.  Our  ideas 
about  Ireland  have  been  all  wrong,  it  seems.  Seven  hundred 
years  ago  the  exigencies  of  the  time  demanded  the  foundation 
of  a  strong  British  Empire  ;  in  order  to  do  this,  Ireland  had  to 
be  conquered,  and  Ireland  was  conquered.  Since  that  time  the 
one  ruling  idea  in  the  English  mind  has  been  to  do  all  the  good 
that  they  could  for  the  Irish.  Their  legislation  and  their  action 
has  not  always  been  tender,  but  it  has  been  always  beneficent.  , 
They  sometimes  were  severe,  but  they  were  severe  to  us  for 
our  own  good,  and  the  difficulty  of  England  has  been  that  the 
Irish,  during  these  long  hundreds  of  years,  have  never  under- 
stood their  own  interests  or  knew  what  was  for  their  own  good. 
Now,  the  American  mind  is  enlightened  ;  and  henceforth,  no 
Irishman  must  complain  of  the  past  in  this  new  light  in  which 
Mr.  Froude  puts  it  before  us.  Now  the  amiable  gentleman 
tells  us  what  has  been  the  Irish  fate  in  the  past.  He  greatly 
fears  that  we  must  reconcile  to  it  in  the  future.  He  comes  to 
tell  us  his  version  of  the  history  of  Ireland,  and  he  also  comes 
to  solve  Ireland's  difficulty,  and  to  lead  "us  out  of  all  the 
miseries  that  have  been  our  lot  for  hundreds  of  years. 

SURMISES    CONCERNING    MR.    FROUDE'S    MISSION. 

When  he  came,  many  persons  questioned  what  was  the 
motive  or  the  reason  of  his  coming.  I  have  heard  people 
speaking  all  around  me,  and  assigning  to  the  learned  gentle- 
man this  motive  or  that.  Some  people  said  he  was  an  emissary 
of  the  English  Government ;  that  they  sent  him  here  because 


they  were  beginning  to  be  afraid  of  the  rising  power  of  Ireland 
in  this  great  nation  ;  that  they  saw  here  eight  millions  of  Irish- 
men by  birth,  and,  perhaps,  fourteen  millions  by  descent,  and 
that  they  knew  enough  of  the  Irish  to  realize  that  the  Almighty 
God  blessed  them  always  with  an  extraordinary  power,  not 
only  to  preserve  themselves  but  to  spread  themselves,  until,  in  a 
few  years,  not  fourteen  but  fifty  millions  of  descendants  of 
Irish  blood  and  of  the  Irish  race  will  be  in  this  land.  (Great 
applause.)  According  to  those  who  thus  surmise,  England 
wants  to  check  the  sympathy  of  the  American  people  for  their 
Irish  fellow  -  citizens ;  and  it  was  considered  that  the  best 
way  to  effect  this  was  to  send  a  learned  man,  with  a 
plausible  story,  to  this  country  ;  a  man  with  a  single  power  of 
viewing  facts  in  the  light  which  he  wishes  himself  to  view 
them,  and  put  them  before  others  ;  a  man  with  the  extraor- 
dinary power  of  so  mixing  up  these  facts  that  many  simple- 
minded  people  will  look  upon  them  as  he  puts  them  before 
them  as  true,  and  whose  mission  it  was  to  alienate  the  mind  of 
Americans  from  Ireland  to  -  day,  by  showing  what  an  imprac- 
ticable, obstinate,  accursed  race  we  are. 

Others,  again,  surmised  that  the  learned  gentleman  came  for 
another  purpose.  They  said:  "England  is  in  the  hour  of  her 
weakness  ;  she  is  tottering  fast  and  visibly  to  her  ruin  ;  the  dis- 
ruption of  that  old  empire  is  visibly  approaching  ;  she  is  to-day 
cut  off,  without  an  ally  in  Europe  ;  her  army  a  cipher,  her  fleet 
nothing — according  to  Mr.  Reade,  a  great  authority  on  this 
question  —  nothing  to  be  compared  to  the  rival  fleet  of  the 
great  Russian  power  now  growing  up.  When  France  was 
paralyzed  by  her  late  defeat,  England  lost  her  best  ally.  The 
three  emperors,  in  their  meeting  the  other  day,  contemptuously 
ignored  her,  and  they  settled  the  affairs  of  the  world  without 
so  much  as  mentioning  the  name  of  that  kingdom,  which  was 
once  so  powerful.  Her  resources  of  coal  and  iron  are  failing  ; 
her  people  are  discontented,  and  she  is  showing  every  sign  of 
decay.  Thus  did  some  people  argue  that  England  was  anxious 
for  an  American  alliance  ;  for,  they  said,  "  What  would  be  more 
natural  than  that  the  old,  tottering  empire  should  seek  to  lean 
on  the  strong,  mighty,  vigorous,  young  arm  of  America?" 


I  have  heard  others  say  that  the  gentleman  came  over  to  this 
country  on  the  invitation  of  a  little  clique  of  sectarian  bigots 
(laughter)  in  this  country.  Men  who,  feeling  that  the  night  of 
religious  bigotry  and  sectarian  bitterness  is  fast  coming  to  a 
close  before  the  increasing  light  of  American  intelligence  and 
education,  (applause)  would  fain  prolong  the  darkness  for  an 
hour  or  two,  by  whatever  help  Mr.  Froude  could  lend  them. 

But  I  protest  to  you,  gentlemen,  here  to  -  night,  that  I  have 
heard  all  these  motives  assigned  to  this  learned  man,  without 
giving  them  the  least  acceptance.  I  believe  Mr.  Froude's 
motives  to  be  simple,  straightforward,  honorable  and  patriotic. 
(Applause.)  I  am  willing  to  give  him  credit  for  the  highest 
motives,  and  I  consider  him  perfectly  incapable  of  lending 
himself  to  any  base  or  sordid  proceeding,  from  a  base  or  sordid 
motive.  (Applause.)  But  as  the  learned  gentleman's  motives 
have  been  so  freely  canvassed  and  criticised,  and  I  believe, 
indeed,  in  many  cases  misinterpreted,  so  my  own  motives  in 
coming  here  to-night  may  be,  perhaps,  also  misinterpreted 
and  misunderstood,  unless  I  state  them  clearly  and  plainly. 
As  he  is  said  to  come  as  an  emissary  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment, so  I  may  be  said,  perhaps,  to  appear  as  an  emissary  of 
rebellion  or  of  revolution  ;  as  he  is  supposed,  by  some,  to  have 
the  sinister  motive  of  alienating  the  American  mind  from  the 
Irish  citizenship  of  the  States,  so  I  may  be  suspected  of  endeav- 
oring to  excite  religious  or  political  hatred. 

Now,  I  protest  these  are  not  my  motives  ;  I  am  here  to-night 
simply  to  vindicate  the 

HONOR    OF    IRELAND    IN    HER   HISTORY. 

I  come  here  to  -  night  lest  any  man  should  think  that  in  this 
our  day,  or  in  any  day,  Ireland  is  to  be  left  without  a  son 
who  will  speak  for  the  mother  that  bore  him. 

FROUDE   UNFIT    FOR   THE   TASK. 

And,  first  of  all,  I  hold  that  Mr.  Froude  is  unfit  for  the  task 
that  he  has  undertaken,  for  three  great  reasons :  First,  because 
I  find  in  the  writings  of  this  learned  gentleman  that  he  sol- 
emnly and  emphatically  declares  that  he  despairs  of  ever  find- 


ing  a  remedy  for  Ireland,  and  he  gives  it  up  as  a  bad  job. 
(Laughter.)  Here  are  his  words,  written  in  one  of  his  essays 
a  few  years  ago:  "The  present  hope,"  he  says,  "is  that  by 
assiduous  justice,  (that  is  to  say,  by  conceding  every  thing  that 
the  Irish  please  to  ask)  we  shall  disarm  that  enmity,  and  con- 
vince them  of  our  good  will.  It  may  be  so  ;  there  are  persons 
sanguine  enough  to  hope  that  the  Irish  will  be  so  moderate  in 
what  they  demand,  and  the  English  so  liberal  in  what  they 
grant,  that  at  last  we  shall  fling  ourselves  into  each  other's 
arms  in  tears  of  mutual  forgiveness.  (Laughter.)  I  do  not 
share  that  expectation  (renewed  laughter)  ;  it  is  more  likely 
they  will  push  their  importunities  until  at,  last,  we  turn  upon 
them,  and  refuse  to  yield  further.  And  there  will  be  a  struggle 
once  more  ;  and  either  emigration  will  increase  in  volume  until 
it  has  carried  the  entire  race  beyond  our  reach,  or,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  they  will  have  to  be  coerced  into  submission." 
"Banish  them  or  coerce  them;"  there  is  the  true  English 
speech.  "My  only  remedy,"  he  emphatically  says,  "my  only 
hope,  my  only  prospect  for  the  future  of  Ireland  is :  « Let 
them  all  go  to  America  ;  have  done  with  the  race  ;  give  us  an 
Ireland  at  last,  such  as  we  have  endeavored  to  make,  for  seven 
hundred  years,  a  desert  and  a  solitude  ;  or,  if  they  remain  at 
home,  they  will  have  to  be  coerced  into  submission.'"  I  hold 
that  that  man  has  no  right  to  come  to  America  to  tell  the 
American  people  and  the  Irish  in  America  that  he  can  describe 
the  horoscope  of  Ireland's  future.  He  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
attempt  it,  after  having  uttered  such  words. 

SECOND    REASON. 

The  second  reason  why  I  say  he  is  unfit  for  the  task  of 
describing  Irish  history  is,  because  of  his  contempt  for  the  Irish 
people.  The  original  sin  of  the  Englishman  has  ever  been  his 
contempt  for  the  Irish.  It  lies  deep,  though  dormant,  in  the 
heart  of  almost  every  Englishman.  The  average  Englishman 
despises  the  Irishman  —  looks  down  upon  him  as  a  being  almost 
inferior  in  nature.  Now,  I  speak  not  from  prejudice,  but  from 
an  intercourse  of  years,  for  I  have  lived  among  them.  I  have 
known  Englishmen,  amiable  and  generous  themselves,  charm- 


10 

ing  characters,  who  would  not,  for  the  whole  world,  nourish, 
willfully,  a  feeling  of  contempt  in  their  hearts  for  any  one, 
much  less  to  express  it  in  words  ;  yet  I  have  seen  them  mani- 
fest, in  a  thousand  forms,  that  contempt  for  the  Irish  which 
seems  to  be  their  very  nature.  [A  voice  —  "True  !>;  ]  I  am 
very  sorry  to  say  that  I  can  not  make  any  distinction  between 
the  Protestants  and  Catholics  of  England  in  this  feeling.  I 
mention  this,  not  to  excite  animosity  or  to  create  bad  blood  or 
bitter  feeling  ;  no,  I  protest  this  is  not  my  meaning  ;  but  I 
mention  this  because  I  am  convinced  it  lies  at  the  very  root  of 
this  antipathy  and  of  that  hatred  between  the  English  and 
Irish  which  seem  to  be  incurable  ;  and  I  verily  believe  that, 
until  that  feeling  is  destroyed,  you  never  can  have  cordial  union 
between  these  two  countries,  and  the  only  way  to  destroy  it  is, 
that  by  raising  Ireland,  through  justice  and  by  home  legisla- 
tion, she  will  attain  such  a  position  that  she  will  enforce  and 
command  the  respect  of  her  English  fellow  -  subjects.  Mr. 
Froude,  himself,  who,  I  am  sure,  is  incapable  of  any  ungenerous 
sentiment  toward  any  man  or  any  people,  is  an  actual  living 
example  of  that  feeling  of  contempt  of  which  I  speak.  In 
November,  1856,  this  learned  gentleman  addressed  a  Scottish 
Assembly  in  Edinburgh.  The  subject  of  his  address  was  :  "  The 
Effect  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  upon  Scottish  Character." 
Accoiding  to  him,  it  made  the  Scotch  the  finest  people  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Originally  fine,  they  never  got  their  last 
touch  that  made  them,  as  it  were,  archangels  among  men,  until 
the  holy  hand  of  John  Knox  touched  them.  On  that  occasion, 
the  learned  gentleman  introduced  himself  to  his  Scottish  audi- 
ence in  the  following  words:  "I  have  undertaken,"  he  says, 
"to  speak  this  evening  on  the  effects  of  the  Reformation  in 
Scotland,  and  I  consider  myself  a  very  bold  person  to  have 
come  here  on  any  such  undertaking  ;  in  the  first  place,  the 
subject  is  one  with  which  it  is  presumptuous  for  a  stranger  to 
meddle.  Great  national  movements  can  only  be  understood 
properly  by  the  people  whose  disposition  they  represent.  We 
see,  by  our  own  history,  that  Englishmen  only  can  properly 
Comprehend  it.  It  is  the  same  with  every  considerable  nation 
that  works  cut  its  o\vfl  political  and  spiritual  life  through 


II 

tempers,  humors  and  passions  peculiar  to  itself,  and  the 
same  disposition  which  produces  the  result  is  required  to  inter- 
pret it  afterward."  Did  the  learned  gentleman  offer  any  such 
apology  for  entering  so  boldly  upon  the  discussion  of  affairs? 
Oh  no  !  there  was  no  apology  necessary  ;  he  was  only  going  to 
speak  of  the  mere  Irish. 

"ONLY    IRISH." 

There  was  no  word  to  express  his  own  fears  that,  perhaps,  he 
did  not  understand  the  Irish  character  on  the  subject  upon 
which  he  was  about  to  treat ;  there  was  no  apology  to  the  Irish 
in  America  —  the  fourteen  millions  —  if  he  so  boldly  wa^  to 
take  up  their  history,  endeavoring  to  hold  them  up  as  a  licen- 
tious, immoral,  irreligious,  contemptuous,  obstinate,  unconquer- 
able race — not  at  all.  It  was  not  necessary  —  they  were  only 
Irish.  If  they  were  Scottish,  then  the  learned  gentleman 
would  have  come  with  a  thousand  apologies  for  his  own  pre- 
sumption in  venturing  to  approach  such  a  delicate  subject  as 
the  delineation  of  the  sweet  Scottish  character,  or  any  thing 
connected  with  it.  (Laughter  and  applause.)  What,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  treatment  of  the  Irish  ?  I  have,  in  this 
book  before  me,  words  that  came  from  his  pen  ;  and  I  protest, 
as  I  read  them,  I  feel  every  drop  of  my  blood  boil  in  my  veins 
when  the  gentleman  said:  "The  Irish,  they  may  be  good  at 
the  voting  booths,  but  they  are  not  good  to  handle  a  rifle."  He 
compares  us,  in  this  essay,  to  a  "pack  of  hounds."  He 
says,  "To  deliver  Ireland  ;  to  give  Ireland  any  meed,  would  be 
the  same  as  if  a  gentleman,  addressing  his  hounds,  said  :  « I 
give  you  your  freedom  ;  now  go  out,  and  act  for  yourselves.'" 
That  is,  he  means  to  say  that,  after  worrying  all  the  sheep  in 
the  neighborhood,  they  would  end  by  tearing  each  other  to 
pieces.  (Laughter.)  I  deplore  this  feeling.  The  man  who 
is  possessed  of  it  can  never  understand  the  philosophy  of  Irish 
history. 

Thirdly.  Mr.  Froude  is  utterly  unfit  for  the  task  of  deline- 
ating and  interpreting  the  history  of  the  Irish  people,  because 
of  his  more  than  contempt  and  bitter  hatred  and  detestation  in 
which  he  holds  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  Catholic  Church. 


In  this  book  before  me,  he  speaks  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  an 
old  serpent  whose  poisonous  fangs  have  been  drawn  from  her ; 
and  she  now  is  a  Witch  of  Endor,  mumbling  curses  to-day  be- 
cause she  can  not  burn  at  the  stake  and  shed  blood  as  of  old. 
He  most  invariably  charges  the  Church  and  makes  her  respon- 
sible for  the  French  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  ;  for 
the  persecutions  before  those  days  that  originated  from  the  revo- 
lution in  the  Netherlands,  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  against  Philip 
the  Second  ;  for  every  murder  that  has  been  committed  and 
fouler  butchery,  he  says,  by  the  virus  of  a  most  intense  preju- 
dice ;  that  the  Catholic  Church  lies  at  the  bottom  of  them  all, 
and  is  responsible  for  them.  The  very  gentlemen  that  wel- 
comed and  surrounded  him  when  he  came  to  New  York,  gave 
him  plainly  to  understand,  where  the  Catholic  religion  is  in- 
volved—  where  a  favorite  theory  is  to  be  worked  out — where  a 
favorite  view  is  to  be  proved  —  that  they  do  not  consider  him  a 
reliable,  trustworthy  witness,  or  where  his  prejudices  are  con- 
cerned as  a  historian.  Yet  I  again  declare  —  not  that  I  believe 
this  gentleman  to  be  capable  of  lying  —  I  believe  he  is  incapa- 
ble— but  wherever  prejudice  comes  in,  such  as  he  has,  he  dis- 
torts the  most  well-known  facts  for  his  own  purposes.  This 
gentleman  wishes  to  exalt  Queen  Elizabeth  by  blackening  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  ;  in  doing  this,  he  has  been  convicted  by  a  citi- 
zen of  Brooklyn  of  putting  his  own  words  as  if  they  were  the 
words  of  ancient  chronicles  and  ancient  laws,  deeds  and  docu- 
ments, and  the  taunt  has  been  flung  at  him,  ''''that  Mr.  Froude 
has  never  grasped  the  meaning  of  inverted  commas"  Henry 
the  Eighth,  of  blessed  memory,  (renewed  laughter)  has  been 
painted  by  this  historian  a  most  estimable  man,  as  chaste  and 
holy  as  a  monk — bless  your  soul  !  (Great  laughter.)  A  man 
that  never  robbed  any  body,  who  every  day  was  burning  with 
zeal  for  the  public  good.  As  to  putting  away  his  wife  and  tak- 
ing the  young  and  beautiful  Anne  Boleyn  to  his  embrace,  that 
was  a  chaste  anxiety  for  the  public  good.  (Renewed  laugh- 
ter.) All  the  atrocities  of  this  monster  in  human  form  melt 
away  under  Mr.  Froude's  eye,  and  Henry  the  Eighth  rises  be- 
fore us  in  such  a  form  that  even  the  Protestants  in  England, 
when  they  heard  him  described  by  Mr.  Froude,  said  :  "Oh  ! 
you  have  mistaken  your  man,  sir  !" 


HENRY    V1I1. 

One  fact  will  show  you  how  this  gentleman  treats  history. 
When  King  Henry  the  Eighth  declared  war  against  the  Church, 
and  when  all  England  was  convulsed  by  his  tyranny — one  day 
hanging  a  Catholic  because  he  would  not  deny  the  supremacy 
of  the  Pope  ;  the  next  day  hanging  a  Protestant,  because  he  de- 
nied the  Real  Presence  —  any  body  that  differ2d  from  Henry 
was  sure  to  be  sent  to  the  scaffold.  It  was  a  sure  and  expedi- 
tious way  of  silencing  all  argument. 

During  this  time,  when  the  monasteries  were  beginning  to  be 
pillaged,  the  Catholic  clergy  of  England,  especially  those  who 
remained  faithful  to  the  Pope,  were  the  most  odious  to  the  ty- 
rant. And  such  was  the  slavish  acquiescence  of  the  English 
people  that  they  began  to  hate  their  clergy  in  order  to  please 
their  King.  Well !  at  this  time,  a  certain  man,  whose  name 
was  Hunn,  was  lodged  a  prisoner  in  the  tower,  and  hanged  by 
the  neck.  There  was  a  coroner's  inquest  held  upon  him,  and 
the  tivelve  blackguards,  I  can  call  them  nothing  else,  in  order  to 
express  their  hatred  for  the  Church,  and  to  please  the  powers 
which  were,  found  a  verdict  against  the  Chancellor  of  the  Bishop 
of  London,  a  most  excellent  priest,  whom  every  body  knew  to 
be  such.  When  the  Bishop  heard  of  this  verdict,  he  applied  to 
the  Prime  Minister  to  have  the  verdict  quashed.  He  brought 
the  matter  before  the  House  of  Lords,  in  order  that  the  charac- 
ter of  his  Chancellor  might  be  fully  vindicated.  The  King's 
Attorney-General  took  cognizance  of  it  by  a  solemn  decree,  and 
the  verdict  of  the  coroner's  inquest  was  set  aside,  and  the  twelve 
men  declared  to  be  twelve  perjurers.  (Applause.)  Now  lis- 
ten to  Mr.  Froude's  version  of  that  story.  He  says:  "The 
clergy  of  the  time  were  reduced  to  such  a  dreadful  state  that 
actually  a  coroner's  inquest  returned  a  verdict  of  willful  murder 
against  the  Chancellor  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  the  Bishop 
was  obliged  to  apply  to  Cardinal  Woolsey  to  have  a  special 
jury  to  try  him  —  because,  if  lie  took  any  twelve  men  in  Lon- 
don, they  would  have  found  him  guilty."  Leaving  the  reader 
under  the  impression  that  this  priest,  this  Chancellor,  was  a 
monster  of  iniquity,  and  the  priests  of  the  time  were  as  bad  as 
he.  Leaving  the  impression  that  a  man  was  guilty  of  the  mur- 


it  4 

der  who  was  as  innocent  as  Abel,  and  that,  if  put  for  trial  before 
twelve  of  his  countrymen,  they  would  have  found  him  guilty  on 
the  evidence.  This  is  the  version  he  puts  upon  it ;  he  knowing 
the  facts  as  well  as  I  know  them. 

FROUDE'S  FIRST  LECTURE  CONSIDERED. 

Well,  now,  my  friends,  I  come  to  consider  the  subject  of  his 
first  lecture.  Indeed,  I  must  say  I  never  practically  experi- 
enced the  difficulty  of  hunting  a  Will -o'-the- Wisp  in  a  marsh 
(laughter)  until  I  came  to  follow  this  learned  gentleman  in  his 
first  lecture.  I  say  nothing  disrespectful  of  him  at  all,  but  sim- 
ply say  he  covered  so  much  ground,  at  such  unequal  distances, 
that  it  was  impossible  to  follow  him.  He  began  by  remarking 
how  Mr.  Rufus  King  wrote  such  and  such  a  letter  about  certain 
Irishmen,  and  said  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  sympathized 
with  England,  while  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  breast  high 
for  America  in  the  old  struggle  between  this  country  and  Great 
Britain.  All  these  questions  which  belong  to  late  days,  I  will 
leave  aside  for  the  close  of  these  lectures.  When  I  come  to 
speak  of  the  men  and  things  of  our  own  day,  then  I  shall  have 
great  pleasure  in  taking  up  Mr.  Fronde's  assertion.  But  com- 
ing home  to  the  great  question  of  Ireland,  what  does  this  gentle- 
man tell  us  ?  For  seven  hundred  years  Ireland  was  invaded  by 
the  Anglo-Normans.  The  first  thing,  apparently,  that  he  wishes 
to  do,  is  to  justify  this  invasion,  and  establish  this  principle 
that  the  Normans  were  right  in  coming  to  Ireland.  He  began 
by  describing  a  terrible  picture  of  the  state  *of  Ireland  before 
the  invasion.  "They  were  cutting  each  other's  throats,  and 
the  whole  land  was  covered  with  bloodshed  ;  there  was  in  Ire- 
land neither  religion,  morality,  or  government ;  therefore,  the 
Pope  found  it  necessary  to  send  the  Normans  to  Ireland,  as  you 
would  send  a  policeman  into  a  saloon  where  the  people  were 
killing  one  another."  This  is  his  justification  :  That  in  Ire- 
land, seven  hundred  years  ago,  just  before  the  Norman  inva- 
sion, there  was  neither  religion,  morality,  nor  government.  Let 
us  see  if  he  is  right.  (Applause.) 

The  first  proof  that  he  gives  that  there  was  no  government  in 
Ireland  is  a  most  insidious  statement.  He  says  :  "  How  could 


there  be  any  government  in  a  country  where  every  family  main- 
tained itself  according  to  its  own  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  ac- 
knowledging no  authority?"  Now,  if  this  be  true  —  in  our 
sense  of  the  word  "family"  —  certainly  Ireland  was  in  a  most 
deplorable  state  —  every  family  governing  itself  according  to  its 
own  notions,  and  acknowledging  no  authority.  What  does  he 
mean  by  the  words  "every  family?"  Speaking  to  Americans 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  it 'means  every  household  in  the  land. 
We  speak  of  family  as  composed  of  father,  mother,  and  three  or 
four  children,  gathered  around  the  domestic  hearth  ;  this  is  our 
idea  of  the  family.  I  freely  admit,  if  every  family  in  Ireland 
were  governed  by  their  own  ideas  —  admitting  of  no  authority 
over  them  —  he  has  established  his  case  in  one  thing  against 
Ireland.  But  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  "every  fam- 
ily ?"  As  every  Irishman  who  hears  me  to-night  knows,  it 
means  the  "sept"  or  the  tribe  that  had  the  same  name.  They 
owned  two  t)r  three  counties  and  a  large  extent  of  territory. 
The  men  of  the  same  name  were  called  the  men  of  the  same 
family.  The  MacMurraghs  of  Leinster,  the  O'Tooles  of  Wick- 
low,  the  O'Byrnes  in  Kildare,  the  O'Conors  of  Connaught,  the 
O'Neills  and  the  O'Donnells  of  Ulster.  The  family  meant  a 
nation.  Two  or  three  counties  were  governed  by  one  chieftain, 
and  represented  by  one  man  of  the  sept.  It  is  quite  true  that 
each  family  governed  itself  in  its  own  independence,  and  ac- 
knowledged no  superior.  (Cheers.)  There  were  five  great 
families  in  Ireland  :  The  O'Conors  in  Connaught,  the  O'Neills 
in  Ulster,  the  McLaughlins  in  Meath,  the  O'Briens  in  Munstcr, 
and  the  MacMurraghs  in  Leinster.  And  under  these  five  great 
heads  there  were  miner  septs  and  smaller  families,  each  count- 
ing from  five  or  six  hundred  to  perhaps  a  thousand  fighting  men, 
but  all  acknowledging  in  the  different  provinces  their  sovereignty 
to  these  five  great  royal  houses.  These  five  houses  again  elected 
their  monarch,  or  supreme  ruler,  called  the  Ardrigh,  who  dwelt 
in  Tara.  (Applause.)  Now,  I  ask  you,  if  family  meant  the 
whole  sept,  or  tribe,  or  army  in  the  field,  defending  their  fami- ' 
lies — having  their  regular  constituted  authority  and  head — is  it 
fair  to  say  that  the  country  was  in  anarchy  because  every  family 
governed  themselves  according  to  their  own  notions  ?  Is  it  fair 


i6 

for  this  gentleman  to  try  to  hoodwink  and  deceive  the  American 
jury,  to  which  he  has  made  his  appeal,  by  describing  the  Irish 
family,  which  meant  a  sept,  or  tribe,  as  a  family  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  which  means  only  the  head  of  the  house,  with 
the  mother  and  the  children  ? 

A  GRAND  DISCOVERY. 

Again,  he  says:  "In  this  deplorable  state  the  people 
lived,  like  the  New  Zealanders  of  to-day — in  under-ground 
caves."  And  then  he  boldly  says,  "that  I,  myself,  opened 
up  in  Ireland  one  of  these  under-ground  houses  of  the  Irish 
people."  Now,  mark  !  This  gentleman  lived  in  Ireland  a 
few  years  ago,  and  he  discovered  a  rath  in  Kerry.  In  it  he 
found  some  remains  of  mussel-shells  and  bones.  At  the  time 
of  the  discovery  he  had  the  most  learnned  archaeologist  in  Ire- 
land with  him,  and  they  put  together  their  heads  about  it.  Mr. 
Froude  has  written  in  this  very  book  that  what  «these  places 
were  intended  for,  or  the  uses  they  were  applied  to,  baffled  all- 
conjecture — no  one  can  tell.  Then,  "if  it  baffled  all  conject- 
ure, and  he  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it  " — if  it  so  puzzled 
him  then,  that  no  man  could  declare  what  they  were  for,  what 
right  has  he  to  come  out  to  America  and  say  they  were  the 
ordinary  dwellings  of  the  Irish  people  ? 

ANCIENT    IRISH  CONSTITUTION. 

In  order  to  understand  the  Norman  invasion,  I  must  ask  you 
to  consider  first,  my  friends,  the  ancient  Irish  Constitution  which 
governed  the  land.  Ireland  was  governed  by  "septs"  or 
families.  The  land,  from  time  immemorial,  was  in  the  posses- 
sion of  these  families  or  tribes  ;  each  tribe  elected  its  own  chief- 
tain, and  to  him  it  paid  the  most  devoted  obedience  and  al- 
legiance, so  that  the  fidelity  of  the  Irish  clansman  to  his  chief 
was  proverbial.  The  chief,  during  his  lifetime,  convoked  an 
assembly  of  the  tribe  again,  and  they  elected  from  among  the 
princes  of  his  family  the  best  and  the  strongest  man  to  be  his 
successor,  and  they  called  him  the  Taniste.  The  object  of  this 
was,  that  the  successor  of  the  king  might  be  known,  and  at  the 
king's  death,  or  the  princess  death,  there  might  be  no  riot  or 


bloodshed,  or  contention,  for  the  right  of  succession  to  him. 
Was  this  not  a  wise  law?  The  elective  monarchy  has  its  ad- 
vantages. The  best  man  comes  to  the  front,  because  he  is  the 
choice  of  his  fellow-men.  For  when  they  came  to  elect  a  suc- 
cessor to  their  prince,  they  chose  the  best  man,  not  the  king's 
eldest  son,  who  might  be  a  booby  or  a  fool.  (Laughter.)  And 
so  they  came  together  and  wisely  selected  the  best,  the  strong- 
est, the  bravest  and  the  wisest  man,  and  he  was  acknowledged 
to  have  the  right  to  the  succession.  He  was  the  Taniste,  ac- 
cording to  the  ancient  law  of  Ireland.  Well,  these  families,  as 
we  said,  in  the  various  provinces  of  Ireland,  owed  allegiance 
to  the  king  of  the  province.  He  was  one  of  the  five  great  fam- 
ilies called  "  The  Jive  great  families  of  Ireland"  Each  prince 
had  his  own  judge  or  brehon,  who  administered  justice  in  the 
court  to  the  people.  These  breJion  judges  were  learned  men. 
The  historians  of  the  time  tell  us  that  they  could  speak  Latin 
as  fluently  as  they  could  speak  Irish  ;  they  had  established  a 
code  of  laws,  and,  in  their  colleges,  studied  that  la'y,  and,  when 
they  had  graduated  in  their  studies  came  home  to  their  respect- 
ive septs  or  tribes,  and  were  established  as  judges  or  brehons 
over  the  people.  Nay,  more  ;  no  where  in  the  history  of  the 
island  do  we  hear  of  an  instance  where  a  man  rebelled  or  pro- 
tested against  the  decision  of  his  brehon  judge.  Then  these 
five  monarchs  in  the  provinces  elected  an  **  Ardragh,"  or  high 
king.  With  him  they  sat  in  council,  on  national  matters,  within 
the  halls  of  Imperial  Tara. 

There  Patrick  found  them  in  the  year  432.  Minstrel,  bard 
and  brehon;  prince,  crowned  monarch,  and  high  king,  there 
did  he  find  them  discussing,  like  lords  and  true  men,  the  affairs 
of  the  nation,  when  he  preached  to  them  the  faith  of  Jesus 
Christ.  (Applause.)  And  while  the  Constitution  remained 
the  clansmen  paid  no  rent  for  their  land.  The  land  of  the  tribe 
or  family  was  held  in  common.  It  was  the  common  property 
of  all,  and  the  brehon  or  judge  divided  it  and  gave  to  each  man. 
what  was  necessary  for  him,  with  free  right  to  pasturage  over 
the  whole.  They  had  no  idea  of  slavery  or  serfdom  among 
them.  The  Irish  clansman  was  of  the  same  blood  with  his 
chieftain.  O'Brien,  that  sat  in  the  saddle  at.  the  head  of  his 


i8 

men,  was  related  to  Gallowglass  O'Brien,  that  was  in  the 
ranks.  No  such  thing  as  looking  down  by  the  chieftains  upon 
their  people  ;  no  such  thing  as  cowed,  abject  submission  upon 
the  part  of  the  people  to  a  tyrannical  chieftain.  In  the  ranks 
they  stood  as  freemen  —  freemen  perfectly  equal,  one  with  the 
other.  (Applause.)  We  are  told  by  Gerald  Barry,  the  lying 
historian,  who  sometimes,  though  rarely,  told  the  truth,  (laugh- 
ter) that  "when  the  English  came  to  Ireland  nothing  aston- 
ished them  more  than  the  free  and  bold  manner  in  which  the 
humblest  man  .spoke  to  his  chieftain,  and  the  condescending 
kindness  and  spirit  of  equality  in  which  the  chieftain  treated  the 
humblest  soldier  in  his  tribe." 

"DOES  IT  LOOK  LIKE 'ANARCHY  ?" 

This  was  the  ancient  Irish  Constitution,  my  friends.  And, 
now,  does  this  look  any  thing  like  anarchy  ?  Can  it  be  said, 
with  truth,  of  a  land  where  the  laws  were  so  well  defined  — 
where  every  thing  was  in  its  proper  place — that' 'there  was  anar- 
chy? Mr.  Froude  says  "  There  was  anarchy  there,  because  the 
chieftains  were  fighting  among  themselves."  So  they  were  ; 
but,  he  also  adds,  «« there  was  fighting  every- where  in  Europe 
after  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire."  Well  !  Mr. 
Froude,  fighting  was  going  on  every-where  ;  the  Saxons  were 
fighting  the  Normans  around  them  in  England,  and  what  right 
have  you  to  say  that  Ireland,  beyond  all  other  nations,  was 
given  up  to  anarchy,  because  chieftain  drew  the  sword  against 
chieftain  frequently,  from  time  to  time  ? 

So  much  for  the  question  of  government.  Now  for  the  ques- 
tion of  religion  :  The  Catholic  religion  flourished  in  Ireland  for 
six  hundred  years,  and  more,  before  the  Anglo-Normans  invaded 
her  coasts.  For  the  first  three  hundred  years  that  religion  was 
the  glory  of  the  world,  and  the  pride  of  God's  Holy  Church. 
Ireland,  for  these  thiee  hundred  years,  was  the  island-mother 
home  of  saints  and  of  scholars.  (Great  applause. )  Men  came 
from  every  country  in  the  then  known  world  to  light  the 
lamps  of  knowledge  and  pf  sanctity  at  the  sacred  fire  upon  the 
altars  of  Ireland. 


19 

THE  DANES. 

Then  came  the  Danes,  and  for  three  hundred  years  our 
people  were  harrassed  by  incessant  war.  The  Danes,  as  Mr. 
Froude  remarks,  apparently  with  a  great  deal  of  approval,  had 
no  respect  for  Christ  or  for  religion,  and  the  first  thing  they  did 
was  to  set  fire  to  the  churches  and  monasteries.  The  nuns  and 
holy  monks  were  scattered,  and  the  people  left  without  instruc- 
tion. Through  a  time  of  war  men  don't  have  much  time  to 
think  of  religion,  or  things  of  peace.  And  for  three  hundred 
years  Ireland  was  subject  to  the  incursions  of  the  Danes.  On 
Good  Friday  morning,  in  the  year  1014,  Brian  Boroihme  de- 
feated the  Dames  at  Clontarf ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  23d  of 
August,  1103,  in  the  twelfth  century,  that  the  Danes  were 
driven  out  of  the  land  by  the  defeat  of  Magnus,  their  king,  at 
Loch  Stranford,  in  the  centre  of  Ireland.  (Applause.)  The 
consequence  of  these  Danish  wars  was,  that  the  Catholic  relig- 
ion, though  it  remained  in  all  its  vital  strength,  in  all  the  purity 
of  its  faith  among  the  Irish  people,  yet  it  remained  sadly  shorn 
of  that  sanctity  which  adorned,  for  the  first  three  hundred 
years,  Irish  Christianity.  Vices  sprang  up  among  the  people, 
for  they  were  accustomed  to  war,  war,  WAR,  night  and  day, 
for  three  centuries.  Where  is  the  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  that  would  not  be  utterly  demoralized  by  fifty  years  of 
war,  much  less  by  three  hundred  ?  The  "Wars  of  the  Roses" 
in  England  did  not  last  more  than  thirty  years,  and  they  left 
the  English  people  so  demoralized  that,  almost  without  a 
struggle,  they  changed  their  religion  at  the  dictates  of  the 
blood-thirsty  and  licentious  tyrant,  Henry  VIII. 

MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  STATUS  OF    THE  ANCIENT  IRISH. 

No  sooner  was  the  Dane  gone  than  the  Irish  people  sum- 
moned their  bishops  and  their  priests  to  council,  and  we  find 
almost  every  year  after  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Dane,  a  coun- 
cil held,  where  gathered  the  bishops,  .priests,  the  leaders  and 
the  chieftains  of  the  land  —  the  heads  of  the  great  septs  or 
families.  There  they  made  those  laws  by  which  they  en- 
deavored to  repair  all  the  evils  of  the  Danish  invasion.  Strict 
laws  of  Christian  morality  were  enforced,  and  again  and  again 


26 

\ve  find  these  councils  assembled  to  receive  a  Papal  Legate — - 
Cardinal  Papero,  in  the  year  1164,  five  years  before  the  Nor- 
man invasion.  They  invited  the  Papal  Legate  to  the  council, 
and  we  find  the  Irish  people,  every  year  after  the  Norman  inva- 
sion, obeying  the  laws  of  the  council  without  a  murmur.  We 
find  the  council  of  Irish  bishops  assembled,  supported  by  the 
sword  and  power  of  the  chieftains  with  the  Pope's  Legate,  who 
was  received  into  Ireland  with  open  arms  whenever  his  master 
sent  him,  without  let  or  hindrance.  When  he  arrived,  he  was 
surrounded  with  all  the  devotion  and  chivalrous  affection  which 
the  Irish  have  always  paid  to  their  representatives  of  religion 
in  the  country.  (Applause.)  And,  my  friends,  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  see  what  was  the  consequences  of  all  these  councils  — 
what  was  the  result  of  this  great  religious  revival  which  has 
taken  place  in  Ireland  during  the  few  years  elapsed  between 
the  last  Danish  invasion  and  the  invasion  of  the  Normans  ?  We 
find  three  Irish  saints  reigning  together  in  the  Church.  We 
find  St.  Malachi,  one  of  the  greatest  saints,  Primate  of  Armagh  ; 
we  find  him  succeeded  by  St.  Celsus,  and  again  by  Gregorius, 
whose  name  is  a  name  high  up  in  the  martyrology  of  the  time. 
We  find,  in  Dublin,  St.  Lawrence  O'Toole,  of  glorious  memory. 
(Great  applause.)  We  find  Phelix  and  Christian,  bishops  of 
Lismore,  Catholicus  of  Down,  Augustus  of  Waterford  ;  every 
man  of  them  famed,  not  only  in  Ireland,  but  throughout  the 
whole  Church  of  God,  for  the  greatness  of  their  learning,  and 
the  brightness  of  their  sanctity.  We  find,  at  the  same  time, 
Irish  monks,  famous  for  their  learning  as  men  of  their  class, 
and  as  famous  for  their  sanctity.  In  the  great  Irish  Benedic- 
tine Monastery  of  Rathsbon,  we  find  Lawrence  and  twelve  other 
Irish  monks.  We  find,  moreover,  that  the  very  year  before  the 
Normans  arrived  in  Ireland,  in  1 1 68,  a  great  council  was  held 
at  Athboy.  Thirteen  thousand  Irishmen  represented  the  na- 
tion ;  13,000  warriors  on  horseback  attended  the  council  and 
the  bishops  and  priests,  with  their  chiefs  to  take  the  law  they 
made  from  them,  and  hear  whatever  the  Church  commanded 
them  to  obey.  What  was  the  result  of  all  this  ?  Ah  !  my 
friends,  I  am  not  speaking  from  any  prejudiced  point  of  view. 
It  has  been  said  '  *  that  if  Mr.  Froude  gives  the  history  of  Ire 


land  from  an  outside  view,  of  course  Father  Burke  would  have 
to  give  it  from  an  inside  view."  Now,  I  am  not  giving  it  from 
an  inside  view  ;  I  am  only  quoting  English  authorities.  I  find 
that  in  this  very  interval  between  the  Danish  and  Saxon  inva- 
sion, Lafranc,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  writing  to  O'Brien, 
King  of  Minister,  congratulated  him  on  the  religious  spirit  of 
his  people.  I  find  that  St.  Anselm,  one  of  the  greatest  saints 
that  ever  lived,  and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  under  William 
Rufus,  writes  to  Murtagh,  King  of  Munster,  "I  give  thanks  to 
God,"  he  says,  " for  the  many  good  things  we  hear  of  your 
Highness,  and  especially  for  the  profound  peace  which  the  sub- 
jects of  your  realm  enjoy.  All  good  men  who  hear  this  give 
thanks  to  God,  and  pray  that  He  may  grant  you  length  of 
days."  The  man  that  wrote  that  perhaps  was  thinking,  while 
he  was  writing,  of  the  awful  anarchy,  impiety  and  darkness  of 
the  most  dense  and  terrible  kind  which  covered  his  own  land  of 
England  in  the  reign  of  the  Red  King,  William  Rufus.  And 
yet  we  are  told,  indeed,  by  Mr.  Froude  —  a  good  judge  he  seems 
to  be  of  religion  (laughter)  —  for  he  says,  in  one  of  his  lectures, 
1  *  Religion  is  a  thing  of  which  one  man  knows  as  much  as  an- 
other, and  none  of  us  know  any  thing  at  all ;"  he  tells  us  that 
the  Irish  were  without  religion  at  the  very  time  when  the  Irish 
Church  was  forming  itself  into  the  model  of  sanctity  which  it 
was  at  the  time  of  the  Danish  invasion  ;  when  Roderic  O'Conor, 
King  of  Connaught,  was  acknowledged  by  every  prince  and 
chieftain  in  the  land  to  be  the  High  King  of  Adrigh.  Now,  as 
far  as  regards  what  he  says,  "That  Ireland  was  without  mor- 
ality," I  have  but  little  to  say.  I  will  answer  that  by  one 
fact :  A  king  of  Ireland  stole  another  man's  wife.  His  name, 
accursed  !  was  Dermot  McMurragh,  King  of  Leinster.  (Ap- 
plause.) Every  chieftain  in  Ireland,  every  man  rose  up  and 
banished  him  from  Irish  soil  as  unworthy  to  live  on  it.  (Great 
applause.)  If  these  were  the  immoral  people,  if  these  were  the 
bestial,  incestuous,  depraved  race,  which  they  are  described  to  be 
by  leading  Norman  authorities,  may  I  ask  you,  might  not  King 
Dermot  turn  around  and  say  :  "Why  are  you  making  war  upon 
me ;  is  it  not  the  order  of  the  day  ?  Have  I  not  as  good  a 
right  to  be  a  blackguard  as  any  body  else  ?"  (Laughter.) 


Now  comes  Mr,  Froude  and  says  :  "  The  Normans  were  sent  to 
Ireland  to  teach  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  Irish.  (Great 
merriment.)  In  the  language  of  Shakspeare,  I  would  say  : 
"  Oh  !  Jew,  I  thank  thee  for  that  word."  (Uproarious  laugh- 
ter.) In  these  Ten  Commandments,  the  three  most  important 
are,  in  their  relation  to  human  society:  "Thou  shalt  not 
steal  ;  thou  shalt  not  kill  ;  thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neigh- 
bor's wife."  The  Normans,  even  in  Mr.  Froude's  view,  had 
no  right  or  title,  under  Heaven,  to  one  square  inch  of  the  soil  of 
Ireland.  (Cheers.)  They  came  to  take  what  was  not  their 
own  ;  what  they  had  no  right,  no  title  to.  And  they  came,  as 
robbers  and  thieves,  to  teach  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the 
Irish  people,  among  them  the  Commandment :  "Thou  shalt  not 
steal."  Henry  landed  in  Ireland  in  1171.  This  was  after 
murdering  the  holy  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Thomas  a 
Becket.  They  scattered  his  brains  before  the  altar,  Before  the 
Blessed  Sacrament,  at  the  Vesper  hour.  The  blood  of  the  Saint 
and  Martyr  was  upon  his  hands  when  he  came  to  Ireland  to 
teach  the  Irish,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill."  What  was  the  oc- 
casion of  their  coming  ?  When  the  adulterer  was  driven  from 
the  sacred  soil  of  Erin  as  one  unworthy  to  profane  it  by  his 
tread,  he  went  over  to  Henry  and  procured  from  him  a  letter 
permitting  any  of  his  subjects  that  chose  to  embark  for  Ire- 
land to  do  so,  and  there  to  reinstate  the  adulterous  tyrant,  King 
Dermot,  in  his  kingdom.  They  came  then,  as  protectors  and 
helpers  of  adultery,  to  teach  the  Irish  people,  "Thou  shalt 
not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife." 

POPE  ADRIAN'S  LETTER. 

Mr.  Froude  tells  us  they  were  right  ;  that  they  were  the 
apostles  of  purity,  honesty  and  clemency,  and  Mr.  Froude  "  is 
an  honorable  man."  Ah,  but  he  says,  remember,  my  good  Do- 
minican friend,  "that  if  they  came  to  Ireland,  they  came  be- 
cause the  Pope  sent  them."  Henry,  in  the  year  1174,  pro- 
duced a  letter,  which  he  said  he  received  from  Pope  Adrian  IV, 
which  commissioned  him  to  go  to  Ireland,  and  permitted  him 
there,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  letter,  to  do  whatever  he 
thought  right  and  fit  to  promote  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good 


of  the  people.  The  date  that  was  in  the  letter  was  1 154,  con- 
sequently it  was  twenty  years  old.  During  that  twenty  years, 
nobody  ever  heard  of  that  letter  except  Henry,  who  had  it  in 
his  pocket,  and  an  old  man,  called  John  of  Salisbury,  that 
wrote  how  he  went  to  Rome  and  procured  the  letter  in  a  hug- 
ger-mugger way  from  the  Pope.  Now  let  us  examine  this  let- 
ter. It  has  been  examined  by  a  better  authority  than  me.  It 
has  been  examined  by  one  who  is  here  to  night,  who  has 
brought  to  bear  upon  it  the  acumen  of  his  great  knowledge.  It 
was  dated,  according  to  Rymer,  the  great  English  authority, 
1154.  Pope  Adrian  was  elected  Pope  the  3d  of  December, 
1154.  No  sooner  was  the  news  of  his  election  received  in 
England,  than  John  of  Salisbury  was  sent  on  to  congratulate 
him,  by  King  Henry,  and  to  get  this  letter.  It  must  have  been 
the  3d  of  January,  1155,  before  the  news  reached  England; 
for,  in  those  days,  no  news  could  come  to  England  from  Rome 
in  less  than  a  month.  John  of  Salisbury  set  out,  and  it  must 
have  been  another  month  —  the  end  of  February  or  the  beginning 
of  March,  1155 — before  he  arrived  in  Rome,  and  the  letter 
was  dated  1154.  This  date  in  Rymer  was  found  inconvenient, 
wherever  he  got  it,  and  the  current  date  afterward  was  1155. 
"But,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "there  was  a  copy  of  it  kept  in  the 
archives  of  Rome,  and  how  do  you  get  over  that?"  The  copy 
had  no  date  at  all !  Now  this  copy,  according  to  Baronius,  had 
no  date  at  all,  and  according  to  the  Roman  laws,  a  rescript 
that  has  no  date  is  invalid — just  so  mucli  waste  paper  ;  so  that, 
even  if  Pope  Adrian  gave  it,  it  is  worth  nothing.  Again, 
learned  authors  tell  us  that  the  existence  of  a  document  in  the 
archives  of  Rome  does  not  prove  the  authenticity  of  the  docu- 
ment. It  may  be  kept  there  as  a  mere  historical  record. 

But  suppose  that  Pope  Adrian  had  given  the  letter  to  Henry, 
and  Henry  had  kept  it  so  secret  because  his  mother,  the  Em- 
press Mathilda,  did  not  want  him  to  act  upon  it  —  well,  when 
he  did  act  upon  it,  why  did  he  not  produce  it  ?  That  was  the 
only  warrant  on  which  he  came  to  Ireland,  invaded  the  country, 
and  never  breathed  a  word  to  a  human  being  about  that  letter." 
There  is  a  lie  on  the  face  of  it  !  (Applause.)  Oh,  Mr. 
Froude  reminded  me  to  ««  remember  that  Alexander  III,  his 


24 

successor,  mentions  that  rescript  of  Adrian's,  and  confirmed  it." 
I  answer,  with  Dr.  Lynch  and  the  learned  author,  Dr.  Moran  of 
Ossory,  and  with  many  Irish  scholars  and  historians,  that  Alex- 
ander* s  letter  is  a  forgery  as  well  as  Adrian's. 

ALEXANDER'S   LETTER  is  A  FORGERY  AS  WELL  AS  ADRIAN'S. 

I  grant  that  there  are  learned  men  who  will  admit  the  Di- 
ploma of  Adrian  and  Alexander's  rescript.  But  there  are 
equally  learned  men  who  deny  them  both,  and  I  have  as  good 
reason  to  believe  one  as  the  other,  and  I  prefer  to  believe  it  was 
a  forgery.  Alexander's  letter  bears  the  date  1172.  Now  let 
us  see  whether  it  is  likely  for  the  Pope,  Alexander,  to  give 
Henry  such  a  letter  recommending  him  to  go  to  Ireland,  the 
beloved  son  of  the  Lord,  to  take  care  of  the  Church,  etc.  Re- 
member, it  is  said  Adrian  gave  the  rescript,  and  did  not  know 
the  man  he  gave  it  to.  But  Alexander  knew  him  well ! 
Henry,  in  1169  and  later,  supported  the  anti-Popes  against 
Alexander,  and,  according  to  Matthew  of  Westminster,  King 
Henry  II  obliged  every  one  in  England,  from  the  boy  of  twelve 
years  of  age  to  the  old  man,  to  renounce  his  alliance  to  Alex- 
ander III,  and  go  over  to  the  anti-Papists.  Now  is  it  likely 
that  Alexander  would  give  him  a  rescript  telling  him  to  go  to 
Ireland  and  settle  the  ecclesiastical  matters  there  ?  Alexander 
himself  wrote  to  Henry,  and  said  to  him,  <«  Instead  of  remedy- 
ing the  disorders  caused  by  your  predecessors,  you  have  added 
prevarication  to  prevarication  ;  you  have  oppressed  the  Church 
and  endeavored  to  destroy  the  canons  of  apostolical  men." 

Such  is  the  man  that  Alexander  sent  to  Ireland  to  make  them 
good  people  ?  (Laughter.)  According  to  Mr.  Froude,  "The 
Irish  never  loved  the  Pope  until  the  Normans  taught  them." 
(Laughter.)  What  is  the  fact.  Until  the  accursed  Norman 
came  to  Ireland,  the  Papal  Legate  always  came  to  the  land  at 
his  pleasure.  No  king  ever  obstructed  him  ;  no  Irish  hand  was 
ever  raised  against  a  Bishop,  Priest  of  the  land,  or  Papal  Legate. 
After  the  first  Legate,  Cardinal  Vivian,  passed  over  to  England, 
Henry  took  him  by  the  throat  and  made  him  swear  that  when 
he  went  to  Ireland  he  would  do  nothing  against  the  interest  of 
the  King.  It  was  an  unheard-of  thing  that  Archbishops  and 


25 

Cardinals  should  be  persecuted,  until  the  Normans  taught  the 
world  how  to  do  it  with  their  accursed  feudal  system,  concen- 
trating all  power  in  the  King. 

Ah  !  bitterly  did  Laurence  O'Toole  feel  it,  the  great  heroic 
saint  of  Ireland,  (cheers)  when  he  went  to  England  on  his  last 
voyage.  The  moment  he  arrived  in  England  the  King's  officers 
made  him  prisoner.  The  King  left  orders  that  he  was  never  to 
set  foot  in  Ireland  again. 

It  was  this  man  that  was  sent  over  as  an  apostle  of  morality 
to  Ireland  ;  he,  who  was  the  man  accused  of  violating  the  be- 
trothed wife  of  his  own  son,  Richard  I  —  a  man  whose  crimes 
will  not  bear  repetition  ;  a  man  who  was  believed  by  Europe  to 
be  possessed  of  the  devil ;  a  man  of  whom  it  is  written  "that 
when  he  got  into  a  fit  of  anger  he  tore  off  his  clothes  and  sat 
naked,  chewing  straw  like  a  beast." 

Furthermore  :  Is  it  likely  for  a  Pope,  who  knew  him  so  well, 
who  suffered  so  much  from  him,  would  have  sent  him  to  Ire- 
land ;  the  murderer  of  Bishops,  the  robber  of  churches,  the 
destroyer  of  ecclesiastical  liberty,  and  every  form  of  liberty  that 
came  before  him.  No  !  I  never  will  believe  that  the  Pope  of 
Rome  was  so  very  short-sighted,  so  unjust  as^by  a  stroke  of  his 
pen,  to  abolish  and  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  most  faithful 
people  who  ever  bowed  down  in  allegiance  to  him. 

But  let'  us  suppose  that  Pope  Adrian  gave  the  Bull.  I  hold 
still  that  it  was  of  no  account,  because  it  was  obtained  under 
false  pretenses  ;  for  he  told  the  Pope,  "The  Irish  are  in  a  state 
of  miserable  ignorance,"  which  was  not  true.  Secondly,  he 
told  a  lie,  and,  according  to  the  Roman  law,  a  Papal  rescript 
obtained  on  a  lie  was  null  and  void.  Again,  when  Henry  told 
the  Pope,  when  he  gave  him  that  rescript  and  power  to  go  to 
Ireland,  that  he  would  fix  every  thing  right  and  do  every  thing 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  glory  of  the  people,  he  had  no 
intention  of  doing  it,  and  never  did  it.  Consequently,  the  res- 
cript was  null  and  void. 

But  suppose  the  rescript  was  valid.  Well,  my  friends,  what 
power  did  it  give  Henry  ?  Did  it  give  him  the  land  of  Ireland  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  All  it  was  th'at  the  Pope  said  was,  "I  give 
you  power  to  enter  Ireland,  there  to  do  what  is  necessary  for 


26 

the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people."  At  most,  all 
he  said  he  wished  of  the  Irish  chieftains  was  to  acknowledge 
his  high  sovereignty  over  the  land.  Now  you  must  know  that 
in  these  early  Middle  Ages  there  were  two  kinds  of  sovereignty. 
There  was  a  sovereignty  that  had  the  people  and  the  land. 
They  were  his  ;  he  governed  these  as  the  Kings  and  Emperors  do 
in  Europe  to-day.  Besides  this,  there  was  one  who  went  by 
the  name  and  title  of  King,  and  required  the  homage  only  of 
the  chieftains  of  the  land,  but  who  left  them  in  perfect  liberty 
and  in  perfect  independence.  Yes,  he  demanded  this  nominal 
tribute  of  their  homage  and  worship,  and  nothing  more.  This 
was  all,  evidently,  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  granted  in  Ireland,  if 
he  permitted  so  much  ;  and  the  proof  of  it  lies  here  :  that  when 
Henry  II  came  to  Ireland  he  did  not  claim  of  the  Irish  kings 
that  they  should  give  up  their  sovereignty.  He  left  Roderic 
O'Conor,  King  of  Coianaught,  acknowledging  him  as  a  fellow- 
king  ;  he  acknowledged  his  royalty,  and  confirmed  him,  when 
he  demanded  of  him  the  allegiance  and  the  homage  of  a  feudal 
prince — a  feudal  suzerain — leaving  him  in  perfect  independence. 

DID  HENRY  II  CONQUER  IRELAND? 

Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Henry  intended  to  conquer  Ireland 
and  bring  it  into  slavery.  Did  he  succeed  ?  Was  there  a  con- 
quest at  all  ?  Nothing  like  it.  He  came  to  Ireland,  and  the 
kings  and  princes  of  the  Irish  people  said  to  him  :  "Well,  we 
are  willing  to  acknowledge  your  high  sovereignty  ;  you.  are  the 
Lord  of  Ireland,  but  we  are  the  owners  of  the  land  ;  it  is 
simply  acknowledging  your  title  as  Lord  of  Ireland — nothing 
more."  If  he  intended  any  thing  more,  he  never  carried  out 
his  intention  ;  he  was  able  to  conquer  that  portion  which  was 
held  before  by  the  Danes,  but  not  outside.  It  is  a  fact  that 
when  the  Irish  had  driven  the  Danes  out  of  Ireland  at  Clontarf, 
they,  always  straightforward  and  generous  in  the  hour  of  their 
triumph,  permitted  the  Danes  to  remain  in  Dublin,  Wexford, 
Wicklow  and  Waterford,  and  from  the  Hill  of  Howth  to 
Waterford.  The  consequence  was,  that  the  whole  eastern 
shore  of  Ireland  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Danes.  The 
Normans  came  over,  and  were  regarded,  by  the  Irish,  as 


*    w  **  A  v  JBktlHl-JL  X     1 

27 

^*wf/    CAi  IPAfttt\K^^ 


cousins  to  the  Danes,  and  only  took  the  Danish  territory. 
They  were  willing  to  share  with  them.  Therefore  there  was 
no  cause  now  for  Mr.  Froude's  second  justification  of  these 
most  iniquitous  acts  —  that  Ireland  was  a  prey  to  the  Danes. 
He  says  the  Danes  came  to  the  land  and  made  the  Irish  people 
ferocious,  and  leaves  his  hearers  to  infer  that  the  Danish  wars 
in  Ireland  were  only  a  succession  of  individual  and  ferocious 
contests  between  tribe  and  tribe,  and  between  man  and  man, 
whereas  they  were  a  magnificent  trial  of  strength  between  two 
of  the  greatest  and  bravest  nations  that  ever  met,  foot  -  to  -  foot, 
or  hand-to-hand,  on  a  battle-field.  The  Danes  were  uncon- 
querable. The  Celt,  for  three  hundred  years,  fought  with  them 
and  disputed  every  inch  of  the  land,  filled  every  valley  in  the 
land  with  their  dead,  and,  in  the  end,  drove  them  back  into  the 
North  Sea,  and  freed  his  native  land  from  their  domination. 
(Applause.)  This  magnificent  contest  is  represented,  by  this 
historian,  as  a  mere  ferocious  onslaught,  daily  renewed  between 
*  man  and  man  in  Ireland.  The  Normans  arrived,  and  we  have 
seen  how  they  were  received.  The  Butlers  and  Fitzgeralds 
went  down  into  Kildare,  the  De  Benninghams  and  Burkes  went 
down  into  Connaught.  The  people  offered  them  very  little 
opposition,  gave  them  a  portion  of  their  lands  and  welcomed 
them  among  them,  and  they  began  to  love  them  as  if  they  were 
their  own  flesh  and  blood.  But,  my  friends,  these  Normans, 
so  haughty  in  England,  who  despised  the  Saxons  so  bitterly 
that  their  name  for  the  Saxon  was  "villain"  or  "churl,"  who 
would  not  allow  a  Saxon  to  sit  at  the  same  table  with  them, 
who  never  thought  of  intermarrying  with  the  Saxons  for  many 
long  years  ;  the  proud  Norman,  ferocious  in  his  passions,  brave 
as  a  lion,  formed,  by  his  crusades  and  Saracenic  wars,  the 
bravest  warrior  of  his  times  —  this  steel  -  clad  knight  disdained 
the  Saxon.  Even  one  of  their  followers,  Gerald  Barry,  speak- 
ing of  the  Saxons,  says:  "I  am  a  Welshman;  who  would 
think  of  comparing  the  Welsh  with  the  Saxon  boors  —  the 
basest  race  on  the  face  of  the  earth."  (I  am  only  giving  his 
words,  not  his  sentiments.)  "They  fought  one  battle,  and 
when  the  Normans  conquered  them  they  consented  to  be  slaves 
for  ever  more.  Who  would  compare  them  with  Welsh —  the 


28 

Celtic  race?"  says  this  man  — "with  the  brave,  intellectual 
and  magnanimous  race  of  the  Celts?  "  Now,  my  friends,  when 
these  Normans  went  down  into  Ireland  among  the  Irish  people, 
went  out  from  the  Danish  portion  of  the  Pale,  what  is  the  first 
thing  that  we  see  ?  They  threw  off  their  Norman  traits,  forgot 
their  Norman  French  language,  and  took  the  Irish  —  took  Irish 
wives,  and  were  glad  to  get  them,  and  adopted  Irish  customs 
until,  two  hundred  years  after  the  Norman  invasion,  we  find  that 
these  proud  descendants  of  William  Fitzalden,  Earl  of  Clanri- 
card,  changed  their  names.  Our  name  of  Burke  was  changed 
to  the  upper  and  lower  Me  William  or  sons  of  William,  in  the 
days  of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  and  so  they  called  them- 
selues  by  that  name,  and  adopted  the  language  and  customs  of 
the  country.  During  the  four  hundred  sad  years  that  followed 
the  Norman  invasion  down  to  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII,  Mr. 
Froude  has  nothing  to  say  but  that  Ireland  was  in  a  constant 
state  of  anarchy  and  confusion  —  and  it  is  true.  It  is  perfectly 
true.  Chieftain  against  chieftain.  It  was  comparative  peace 
before  the  invasion,  but  when  the  Normans  came  in  they  drew 
them  on  by  craft  and  cunning.  The  ancient  historian  Strabo 
says,  "The  Gauls  always  march  openly  to  their  end,  and  they 
are,  therefore,  easily  circumvented."  So,  when  the  Normans 
came  and  the  Saxons,  they  sowed  dissensions  among  the  people, 
they  stirred  them  up  against  each  other,  and  the  bold,  hot  blood 
of  the  Celt  was  always  ready  to  engage  in  contest  and  in  war. 
What  was  the  secret  of  that  incessant  and  desolating  war? 
There  is  no  history  more  painful  to  read  than  the  history  of  the 
Irish  people  from  the  day  that  the  Normans  landed  on  their 
coast  until  the  day  when  the  great  issue  of  Protestantism  was 
put  before  the  nation,  and  when  Irishmen  rallied  in  that  great 
day  as  one  man.  My  friends,  the  true  secret  is,  that  early  and 
constant  effort  of  the  English  to  force  upon  Ireland  the  feudal 
system,  and,  consequently,  to  rob  the  Irish  of  every  inch  of 
their  land,  and  to  exterminate  the  Celtic  race.  I  lay  this-  down 
as  the  one  secret  —  the  one  thread  by  which  you  may  unravel 
the  tangled  skein  of  our  history  for  the  four  hundred  years  that 
followed  the  Norman  invasion.  The  Normans  and  the  Saxons 
came  with  the  express  purpose  and  design  of  taking  every  foot 


of  land  in  Ireland  and  of  exterminating  the  Celtic  race.  It 
is  an  awful  thing  to  think  of,  but  we  have  evidence  for  it. 
First  of  all,  Henry  II,  while  he  made  his  treaties  with  the  Irish 
Kings,  secretly  divided  the  whole  of  Ireland  into  ten  portions, 
and  allotted  each  of  these  portions  to  one  of  his  Norman 
knights.  In  a  word,  he  robbed  the  Irish  people  and  the  Irish 
chieftains  of  every  single  foot  of  land  in  the  Irish  territory. 
It  is  true  they  were  not  able  to  take  possession.  It  is  as  if  a 
master  -  robber  were  to  divide  the  booty  before  it  is  taken  ;  it  is 
far  easier  to  assign  property  not  yet  stolen  than  to  put  the 
thieves  in  possession  of  it.  There  were  Irish  hands  and  Irish 
battle  -  blades  in  the  way  for  many  a  long  year,  nor  has  it  been 
accomplished  to  this  day. 

ENGLISH   TREATMENT    OF   THE    IRISH. 

In  order  to  root  out  the  Celtic  race,  and  to  destroy  us,  mark 
the  measures  of  legislation  which  followed.  First  of  all,  my 
friends,  whenever  an  Englishman  was  put  in  possession  of  an 
acre  of  land  he  got  the  right  to  trespass  upon  his  Irish  neigh- 
bors and  to  take  their  land,  as  far  as  he  could,  and  they  had  no 
action  in  a  court  of  law  to  recover  their  land.  If  an  Irishman 
brought  an  action  at  law  against  an  Englishman  for  taking  half 
of  his  field,  or  for  trespassing  upon  his  land,  acording  to  the  law 
from  the  very  beginning,  that  Irishmen  was  sent  out  of  court — 
there  was  no  action  —  the  Englishman  was  perfectly  justified. 
Worse  than  this.  They  made  laws  declaring  that  the  killing 
of  an  Irishman  was  no  felony.  Sir  John  Davis  tells  us  how, 
upon  a  certain  occasion  at  the  Assizes,  at  Waterford,  in  the  2Qth 
year  of  Edward  I,  a  certain  Thomas  Butler  brought  an  action 
against  Robert  de  Almay  to  recover  certain  goods  that  Robert 
had  stolen  from  him.  The  cause  was  brought  into  court ; 
Robert  acknowledged  that  he  had  stolen  the  goods,  that  he 
was  a  thief ;  the  defense  he  put  in  was  that  Edward,  the  man 
he  had  plundered,  was  an  Irishman.  The  case  was  tried. 
Now,  my  friends,  just  think  of  it !  The  issue  that  was  put 
before  the  jury  was,  whether  Edward,  the  plaintiff ",  was  an 
Irishman  or  an  Englishman.  Robert,  the  thief,  was  obliged 
to  give  back  the  goods,  for  the  jury  found  Edward  was  an 


3° 

Englishman.  But  if  the  jury  found  that  Edward  was  an  Irish- 
man he  might  go  with  the  goods  —  there  was  no  action  against 
him.  We  find,  upon  the  same  authority  —  Sir  John  Davis-  — a 
description  of  an  occasion  at  Waterford,  where  a  man,  named 
Robert  Welsh,  killed  an  Irishman.  He  was  arraigned,  and 
he,  without  the  slightest  difficulty,  acknowledged  it.  "Yes,  I 
did  kill  him.  You  can  not  try  me  for  it,  for  he  was  an  Irish- 
man." Instantly  he  was  let  out  of  the  dock,  on  condition,  as 
the  Irishman  was  in  the  service,  at  the  time,  of  an  English 
master,  he  should  pay  whatever  he  compelled  the  master  to  pay 
for  the  loss  of  his  services,  and  the  murderer  might  go  scot  -  free. 
"Not  only,"  says  Sir  John  Davis,  "were  the  Irish  considered 
aliens,  but  they  were  considered  enemies  in  so  much  that  though 
an  Englishman  might  settle  upon  an  Irishman's  land,  there  was 
no  redress  ;  but  if  an  Irishman  wished  to  buy  an  acre  of  land 
from  an  Englishman,  he  could  not  do  it.  So  they  kept  the 
land  they  had,  and  they  were  always  adding  to  it  by  plunder  ; 
they  could  steal,  without  even  buying  more.  If  any  man  made 
'  a  will,  and  left  an  acre  of  land  to  an  Irishman,  the  moment  it 
was  found  that  he  was  an  Irishman,  the  land  was  forfeited  to 
the  Crown  of  England,  even  if  it  was  only  left  in  trust  to  him, 
as  we  have  two  very  striking  examples.  We  read  that  a  certain 
James  Butler  left  some  lands  in  Meath  in  trust  for  charitable 
purposes,  and  he  left  them  to  his  two  chaplains.  It  was  proved 
that  the  two  priests  were  Irishmen,  and  that  it  was  left  to  them 
in  trust  for  charitable  purposes.  Yet  the  land  was  forfeited 
because  the  two  men  were  Irishmen.  Later  on,  a  certain  Mrs. 
Dawdall,  a  pious  woman,  made  a  will  leaving  some  land,  also 
for  charitable  purposes,  to  her  chaplain,  and  the  land  was 
forfeited  because  the  priest  was  an  Irishman.  In  the  year 
1367,  Lionell  a  third  son  of  Edward  III,  Duke  of  Clarence, 
came  to  Ireland,  held  a  Parliament,  and  passed  certain  laws, 
in  Kilkenny.  You  will  scarcely  believe  what  I  am  going  to 
tell  you.  Some  of  these  were  as  follows  :  "If  any  man  speaks 
the  Irish  language,  or  keeps  company  with  the  Irish,  or  adopts 
Irish  customs,  his  lands  shall  be  taken  from  him  and  forfeited 
to  the  crown  of  England."  If  an  Englishman  married  an 
Irish  woman,  what  do  you  think  was  the  penalty  ?  lie  was 


3* 

sentenced  to  be  half -hanged,  to  have  his  heart  cut  out  before 
he  was  dead,  and  to  have  his  head  struck  off,  and  every  right 
to  his  land  passed  to  the  crown  of  England.  "Thus,"  says 
Sir  John  Davis,  "It  is  evident  that  the  constant  design  of 
English  legislation  in  Ireland  was  to  possess  the  best  Irish 
lands,  and  to  extirpate  and  exterminate  the  Irish  people." 

Now,  citizens  of  America,  Mr.  Froude  came  here  to  appeal 
to  you  for  your  verdict,  and  he  asks  you  to  say,  was  not  England 
justified  in  her  treatment  of  Ireland 

BECAUSE   THE    IRISH    PEOPLE    WOULD   NOT    SUBMIT? 

Now,  citizens  of  America,  would  not  the  Irish  people  be  the 
vilest  dogs  on  the  face  of  the  earth  if  they  submitted  to  such 
treatment  as  this  ?  (Great  and  enthusiastic  cheers.)  Would 
they  be  worthy  of  the  name  of  men  if  they  submitted  to  be  rob- 
bed, plundered  and  degraded  ?  It  is  true  that  in  all  this  legis- 
lation we  see  this  same  spirit  of  contempt  of  which  I  spoke  in 
the  beginning  of  my  lecture.  But  remember,  it  was  these 
Saxon  "churls  "  that  were  thus  despised,  and  ask  yourselves 
what  race  they  treated  with  so  much  contumely,  and  attempted 
in  every  way  to  degrade  while  they  were  ruining  and  robbing  ? 
Gerald  Barry,  the  liar,  speaking  of  the  Irish  race,  said  the  Irish 
came  from  the  grandest  race  that  he  knew  of  on  this  side  of  the 
world,  "and  there  are  no  better  people  under  the  sun."  By 
the  word  "better"  he  meant  more  valiant  and  more  intellect- 
ual. Those  who  came  over  from  England  were  called  Saxon 
««  hobs "  or  churls,  while  the  Irish  called  them  Burdeth  Sas- 
senach. These  were  the  men  who  showed, -in  the  very  system 
by  which  they  were  governed,  that  they  could  not  understand 
the  genius  of  freedom  —  that  they  could  not  understand  the 
nature  of  a  people  who  refused  to  be  slaves.  .They  were  slaves 
themselves.  Consider  the  history  of  the  feudal  system  under 
which  they  lived.  According  to  the  feudal  system  of  govern- 
ment, the  King  of  England  was  lord  of  every  inch  of  land  in 
England  ;  every  foot  of  land  in  England  was  the  King's,  and 
the  nobles  who  had  the  land  held  it  from  the  King,  and  held  it 
under  feudal  conditions — the  most  degrading  that  can  be  imag- 
ined. For  instance,  if  a  man  died  and  left  his  heir,  a  son  or 


32 

a  daughter  under  age,  the  heir  or  heiress,  together  with  the 
estate,  went  into  the  hands  of  the  King.  He  might,  perhaps, 
leave  a  widow  with  ten  children  ;  she  would  have  to  support 
all  the  children  herself  out  of  her  dower,  but  the  estate  and  the 
eldest  son,  or  the  eldest  daughter,  went  into  the  hands  of  the 
King.  Then,  during  their  minority,  the  King  could  spend  the 
revenues  or  could  sell  the  castle  and  sell  the  estate  without 
being  questioned  by  any  one,  and  when  the  son  or  daughter 
came  of  age,  he  then  sold  them  in  marriage  to  the  highest  bid- 
der. We  have  Godfrey  of  Mandeville  buying,  for  twenty  thou- 
sand marks,  from  King  John,  the  hand  of  Isabella,  Countess  of 
Gloster.  We  have  Isabella  de  Linjera,  another  heiress,  offering 
two  hundred  marks  to  King  John  —  for  what  ?  For  liberty  to 
marry  whoever  she  liked,  and  not  to  be  obliged  to  marry  the 
man  he  would  give  her.  If  a  widow  lost  her  husband,  the  mo- 
ment the  breath  was  out  of  him  the  lady  and  the  estate  were  in  the 
possession  of  the  King,  and  he  might  squander  the  estate  or  do  what 
he  liked  with  it,  and  then  he  could  sell  the  woman.  We  have 
Alice,  Countess  of  Warwick,  paying  King  John  one  thousand 
pounds  sterling  in  gold  for  leave  to  remain  a  widow  as  long  as 
she  liked,  and  then  to  marry  any  one  she  liked.  This  was  the 
slavery  called  the  feudal  system,  of  which  Mr.  Froude  is  so 
proud,  and  of  which  he  says,  "It  lay  at  the  root  of  all  that  is 
noble  and  good  in  Europe."  (Laughter.)  The  Irish  could 
not  understand  it  —  small  blame  to  them.  (Laughter.)  But 
when  the  Irish  people  found  that  they  were  to  be  hunted  down 
like  wolves — found  their  lands  were  to  be  taken  from  them, 
and  that  there  was  no  redress,  over  and  over  again  the  Irish 
people  sent  up  petitions  to  the  King  of  England  to  give  them  the 
benefit  of  the  English  law  and  they  would  be  amenable  to  it, 
but  they  were  denied  and  told  that  they  should  remain  as  they 
•were — that  is  to  say,  England  was  determined  to  extirpate  them 
and  get  every  foot  of  Irish  soil.  This  is  the  one  leading  idea 
or  principle  which  animated  England  in  her  treatment  of  Ire- 
land throughout  those  four  hundred  years,  and  it  is  the  only 
clue  you  can  find  to  that  turmoil  and  misery  and  constant  fight- 
ing which  was  going  on  in  Ireland  during  that  time.  Sir  James 
Eusick,  the  English  Commissioner  sent  over  by  Henry  VIII, 


33 

wrote  to  his  Majesty  these  quaint  words  :  "  The  Irish  be  of 
opinion  among  themselves  that  the  English  wish  to  get  all  their 
land  and  to  root  them  out  completely."  He  just  struck  the 
nail  on  the  head.  Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowledges  that  the 
land  question  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  business.  Nay,  more, 
the  feudal  system  would  have  handed  over  every  inch  of  land 
in  Ireland  to  the  Norman  King  and  his  nobles,  and  the  O'Briens, 
the  O'Tooles,  the  O'Donnells,  and  the  O'Conors,  were  of  more 
ancient  and  better  blood  than  that  of  William  the  Bastard  Nor- 
man. 

ENGLAND'S  GREAT  MISTAKE. 

The  Saxon  might  submit  to  feudal  law,  and  be  crushed  into 
a  slave  —  a  clod  of  the  earth.  The  Celt  never  would.  En- 
gland's great  mistake— -in  my  soul  I  am  convinced  that  the  great 
mistake  of  all  the  others  the  greatest — lay  in  this,  that  the 
English  people  never  realized  the  fact  that  in  dealing  with  the 
Irish,  they  had  to  deal  with  the  proudest  race  upon  the  face  of 
the  earth.  (Applause.)  During  these  wars  the  Norman  Earls 

—  the  Ormonds,  the  Desmonds,  the  Geraldines,  the  De  Burghs 

—  were  at  the  head  and  front  of  every  rebellion  ;  the  English 
complained  of  them,  and  said  they  were  worse  than  the  Irish 
rebels,  constantly  stirring  up  disorders.     Do  you  know  the  rea- 
son why  ?     Because  they,  as  Normans,  were  under  the  feudal 
law,  and,   therefore,   the  King's  Sheriff  would   come  down  on 
them  at  every  turn  with  fines  and  forfeitures  of  the  land  held 
from  the  King  ;  so,  by  keeping  the  country  in   disorder,  they 
were  always  able  to  be  sheriffs,  and  they  preferred  the  Irish 
freedom  to  the  English  feudalisms  ;  therefore,  they  fomented 
and  kept  up  these  discords.     It  was  the  boast  of  my  kinsmen 
of  Clanricald  that,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  they  would  never 
allow  a  King's  writ  to  run  in  Connaught.      (Laughter  and  ap- 
plause.)     Dealing  with  this  period  of  our  history,  Mr.  Froude 
says   that  the  Irish  chieftains   and  there  septs,  or  tribes,  were 
doing  this  and  that  —  the  Geraldines,  the  Desmonds,  and  the 
Ormonds.      I  say,  slowly,  Mr.  Froude,  the  Geraldines  and  the 
Ormonds  were  not  the  Irish  people  ;  so  don't  father  their  acts 
upon  the  Irish.     The  Irish  chieftains  have  enough  to  answer 
for.     During  these  four  hundred  years,  I  protest  to  you  that, 

2 


34 

in  this  most  melancholy  period  of  our  sad  history,  I  have  found 
but  two  cases  —  two  instances  that  cheer  me — and  both  were 
the  actions  of  Irish  chieftains.  In  one  we  find  that  Turlough 
O'Conor  put  away  his  wife  ;  she  was  one  of  the  O'Briens. 
Theobald  Burke,  one  of  the  Earls  of  Clanricarde,  lived  with  the 
woman.  With  the  spirit  of  their  heroic  ancestors,  the  Irish 
chieftains  of  Connaught  came  together,  deposed  him  and  drove 
him  out  of  the  place.  Later  on,  we  find  another  chieftain,  Brian 
McMahon,  who  induced  O'Donnell,  chief  of  the  Hebrides,  to 
put  away  his  lawful  wife  and  marry  a  daughter  of  his  own. 
The  following  year  they  fell  out,  and  McMahon  drowned  his 
own  son-in-law.  The  chiefs,  O'Donnell  and  O'Neill,  came  to- 
gether with  their  forces  and  deposed  McMahon  in  the  cause  of 
virtue,  honor  and  womanhood.  I  have  looked  in  vain  through 
these  four  hundred  years  for  one  single  trait  of  generosity  or  of 
the  assertion  of  virtue  among  the  Anglo-Norman  chiefs,  and  the 
dark  picture  is  only  relieved  by  these  two  gleams  of  Irish  pa- 
triotism and  Irish  zeal  in  the  cause  of  virtue,  honor  and  purity. 

ANOTHER  QUESTION. 

Now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  opened  another  question  in  his 
first  lecture.  He  said  that  all  this  time,  whik  the  English 
monarchs  were  engaged  in  trying  to  subjugate  Scotland  and 
subdue  their  French  provinces,  the  Irish  were  rapidly  gaining 
ground,  coming  in  and  entering  the  pale  year  by  year  ;  the 
English  power  in  Ireland  was  in  danger  of  annihilation,  and  the 
only  thing  that  saved  it  was  the  love  of  the  Irish  for  their  own 
independent  way  of  fighting,  which,  though  favorable  to 
freedom,  was  hostile  to  national  unity.  He  says,  speaking  of 
that  time,  "Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have  Allowed  the 
Irish  chieftains  to  govern  their  own  people  ?  Freedom  to 
whom  ?  Freedom  to  the  bad,  to  the  violent — it  is  no  freedom." 
I  deny  that  the  Irish  chieftains,  with  all  their  faults,  were,  as  a 
class,  bad  men  and  violent  men.  I  deny  that  they  were  en- 
gaged, as  Mr.  Froude  says,  in  cutting  their  peoples'  throats, 
that  they  were  a  people  who  would  never  be  satisfied.  Mr. 
Froude  tells  us,  emphatically  and  significantly,  that  "the  Irish 
people  were  satisfied  with  their  chieftains,"  but  people  are  not 


35 

satisfied  under  a  system  where  their  throats  are  being  cut. 
(Great  laughter.)  The  Irish  chieftains  were  the  bane  of  Ire  - 
land  by  their  divisions  ;  the  Irish  chieftains  were  the  ruin  of 
their  country  by  their  want  of  union,  and  want  of  generous  ac- 
quiescence to  some  great  and  noble  head  that  would  save  them 
by  uniting  them.  The  Irish  chieftains,  even  in  the  days  of  the 
heroic  Edward  Bruce,  did  not  rally  around  him  as  they  ought. 
In  their  divisions  is  the  secret  of  Ireland's  slavery  and  ruin 
throughout  those  years.  But,  with  all  that,  history  attests  that 
they  were  still  magnanimous  enough  to  be  the  fathers  of  their 
people  and  to  be  natural  leaders,  as  God  intended  them  to  be, 
of  their  septs,  families  and  namesakes.  And  they  struck  what- 
ever blow  they  did  strike  in  what  they  imagined  to  be  the  cause 
of  right,  justice  and  principle,  and  the  only  blow  that  came  in 
the  cause  of  outraged  honor  and  purity  came  from  the  hand  of 
the  Irish  chiefs  in  those  dark  and  dreadful  years. 

Now  I  will  endeavor  to  follow  this  learned  gentleman  in  his 
subsequent  lectures.  Now  a  darker  cloud  than  that  of  mere 
invasion  is  lowering  over  that  Ireland  ;  now  comes  the  demon 
of  religious  persecution  waving  over  the  distracted  and  ex- 
hausted land.  And  we  shall  see  whether  this  historian  has  en- 
tered into  the  spirit  of  the  great  contest  that  followed,  and  that, 
in  our  day,  has  ended  in  a  glorious  victory  for  Ireland's  church 
and  Ireland's  nationality,  and  which  will  be  followed  as  assur- 
edly by  a  still  more  glorious  future, 


SECOND   LECTURE. 


IRELAND   UNDER    THE   TUDORS. 

T  ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :— -We  now  come  to  consider 
LJ  the  second  lecture  of  the  eminent  English  historian  who  has 
come  among  us.  It  covers  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  ter- 
rible passages  in  our  history.  It  takes  in  three  reigns  —  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII,  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  reign  of 
James  I.  I  scarcely  consider  the  reign  of  Edward  VI  or  of 
Mary  worth  counting.  The  learned  gentleman  began  his  sec- 
ond lecture  with  rather  a  startling  paradox.  He  asseVted  that 
Henry  VIII  was  a  hater  of  disorder. 

Now,  my  dear  friends,  every  man  in  this  world  has  a  hero, 
whether  consciously  or  unconsciously.  Every  man  selects  some 
character  or  other  out  of  history  which  he  admires,  until,  at 
length,  he  is  constantly  thinking  of  the  virtues  and  the  ex- 
cellencies of  this  hero  until  he  comes  almost  to  worship  him. 
Before  us  all  lie  the  grand  historic  names  that  are  written  in 
the  world's  annals,  and  every  man  is  free  to  select  the  charac- 
ter that  he  likes  best,  and  he  selects  his  hero.  Using  this  privi- 
lege, Mr.  Froude  has  made  the  most  singular  selection  of  a  hero 
that  either  you  or  I  ever  heard  of.  His  hero  is  Henry  VIII. 
It  speaks  volumes  for  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Froude's  own  mind  ; 
it  is  a  strong  argument  that  he  possesses  a  charity  the  most  sub- 
lime when  he  has  been  enabled  to  discover  virtues  in  the  histori- 
cal character  of  one  of  the  greatest  monsters  that  ever  cursed  the 
earth.  He  has,  however,  succeeded  in  this,  which 'to  us  ap- 


37 

pears  impossible  —  he  has  discovered,  among  many  other  shin- 
ing virtues  in  the  character  of  the  English  Nero,  a  great  love 
for  order,  a  great  hatred  of  disorder.  Well,  we  must  stop  at 
the  very  first  sentence  of  the  learned  gentleman,  and  try  to  ana-  • 
ly'ze  it,  and  see  how  much  there  is  of  truth  in  this  word  of  the 
historian,  and  how  much  there  is  which  is  honorable  to  him, 
and  a  truthful  figment  of  his  imagination. 

All  order  in  the  State  is  based  upon  three  great  principles, 
my  friends,  namely  :  the  supremacy  of  the  law,  respect  for  and 
the  liberty  of  conscience,  and  a  tender  regard  for  that  which 
lies  at  the  fountain-head  of  all  human  society  —  namely,  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie.  The  first  element  in  every  State 
is  the  supremacy  of  the  law  ;  in  this  supremacy  lies  the  very 
quintessence  of  human  freedom  and  of  all  order.  The  law  is 
supposed  to  be,  according  to  the  definition  of  Aquinas,  "The 
judgment  pronounced  by  profound  reason  and  intellect,  thinking 
and  legislating  for  the  public  good."  The  law,  therefore,  is 
the  expression  of  reason  —  reason  backed  by  authority,  reason 
influenced  by  the  noble  motive  of  the  public  good.  This  be- 
ing the  nature  of  law,  the  very  first  thing  that  we  demand  for 
this  law  is,  that  every  man  bow  down  to  it  and  obey  it. 

No  man  in  the  community  can  claim  exemption  from  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  ;  least  of  all,  the  man  who  is  at  the  head  of  the 
community — because  he  is  supposed  to  represent  before  the  na- 
tion that  principle  of  obedience  without  which  all  national  order 
and  happiness  perishes  among  the  people.  Was  Henry  VIII 
an  upholder  of  the  law  ?  Was  he  obedient  to  the  law  ?  I  deny 
it,  and  I  have  the  evidence  .of  all  history  to  back  me  up  in  the 
denial  ;  and  I  brand  Henry  VIII  as  one  of  the  greatest  enemies 
of  freedom  and  liberty  that  ever  lived  in  this  world. 

My  friends,  I  will  only  give  you  one  example.  Out  of  ten 
thousand,  I  have  selected  one  !  When  Henry  broke  with  the 
Pope,  he  called  upon  his  subjects  to  acknowledge  him  —  bless 
his  mark  —  as  spiritual  head  of  the  Church.  There  were  three 
abbots  of  the  Charter  houses  in  London — namely,  the  Abbot  of 
London  proper,  the  Abbot  of  Axiolam,  and  the  Abbot  of  Bello- 
ral.  These  three  men  refused  to  acknowledge  Henry  as  the 
supreme  spiritual  head  of  the  Church.  He  had  them  arrested  ; 


38 

he  had  them  tried  ;  he  had  a  jury  of  twelve  citizens  of  London 
to  sit  upon  them.  Now,  the  first  principle  of  English  law — -the 
grand  palladium  of  English  legislative  freedom — is  a  perfect 

LIBERTY   OF  THE  JURY. 

The  jury  in  every  country  must  be  perfectly  free,  not  only 
from  every  form  of  coercion  over  them,  but  from  even  their  own 
prejudice.  They  must  be  free  from  any  pre judgment  in  the 
case  ;  they  must  be  perfectly  impartial,  and  perfectly  free  to 
record  their  verdict.  These  twelve  men  refused  to  convict  the 
three  abbots  of  high  treason,  and  they  grounded  their  refusal 
upon  this  :  "Never,"  they  said,  "has  it  been  uttered  in  England 
that  it  was  high  treason  to  deny  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the 
King.  It  is  not  law  ;  and,  therefore,  we  can  not  find  these  men 
guilty  of  high  treason."  What  did  Henry  do  ?  He  sent  word 
to  the  jury  that  if  they  did  not  find  the  three  abbots  guilty,  he 
would  visit  them  with  the  same  penalties  that  he  had  prepared 
for  the  prisoners.  He  sent  word  to  the  jury  that  they  should 
find  them  guilty.  I  brand  Henry,  therefore,  with  having  torn 
in  pieces  the  constitution  of  England's  Magna  Charta,  and  hav- 
ing trampled  upon  the  first  great  element  of  English  law  and 
jurisprudence  —  namely,  the  liberty  of  the  jury.  Citizens  of 
America,  would  you,  any  one  of  you,  like  to  be  tried  by  a  jury, 
if  you  knew  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  had  informed 
that  jury  that,  if  they  failed  to  find  you  guilty,  he  would  put 
them  to  death  ?  Where  would  there  be  liberty,  where  would 
be  the  law,  if  such  a  transaction  were  permitted  ?  But  this 
was  done  by  Mr.  Froude's  great  admirer  of  order  and  hero  — 
Henry  VIII. 

HENRY    VIII    AND    FREEDOM    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

The  second  grand  element  of  order  is  respect  for  conscience. 
The  conscience  of  a  man,  and,  consequently,  of  a  nation,  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  great  guide  in  all  the  relations  in  which  the  peo- 
ple or  the  individuals  stand  to  God.  The  conscience  is  so  free 
that  Almighty  God  Himself  respects  it ;  and  it  is  a  theological 
axiom  that,  if  a  man  does  a  wrong  act,  thinking  that  he  is  do- 
ing right,  having  in  his  consciousness  the  idea  that  he  is  doing 


39 

right,  the  wrong  will  not  be  attributed  to  him  by  the  Almighty 
God.  Was  this  man  a  respecter  of  conscience  ?  Again,  out  of 
ten  thousand  acts  of  his,  I  will  select  one.  He  ordered  the 
people  of  England  to  change  their  religion.  He  ordered  them 
to  give  up  that  grand  system  of  dogmatic  teaching  which  is  in 
the  Catholic  Church,  where  every  man  knows  what  to  believe 
and  what  to  do.  And  what  religion  did  he  offer  them  instead  ? 
He  did  not  offer  them  Protestantism,  for  Henry  VIII  never  was 
a  Protestant,  and  to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  if  he  had  only  been 
able  to  lay  his  hands  upon  Martin  Luther,  he  would  have  made 
a  toast  of  him.  He  heard  Mass  up  to  the  day  of  his  death,  and 
after  his  death  there  was  a  solemn  high  Mass  over  his  inflated 
corpse — a  solemn  high  Mass  that  the  Lord  might  have  mercy 
on  his  soul.  Ah,  my  friends  !  some  other  poor  soul  got  the 
benefit  of  it.  ' 

What  religion  did  he  offer  to  the  people  of  England  ?  He 
simply  came  before  them,  and  said  :  "Let  every  man  in  the 
land  agree  with  me.  Whatever  I  say,  that  is  religion."  More 
than  this,  his  Parliament  —  a  slavish  Parliament  —  every  man 
afraid  of  his  life  —  passed  a  law  making  it  high  treason  not  only 
to  disagree  with  the  King  in  any  thing  that  he  believed,  but 
making  it  high  treason  for  any  man  to  dispute  any  thing  that 
the  King  should  ever  believe  at  a  future  time.  He  was  not 
only  the  enemy  of  conscience  ;  he  was  the  ANNIHILATOR  OF 
CONSCIENCE.  He  would  allow  no  man  to  have  a  conscience. 
"I  am  your  conscience,"  he  said  to  the  nation.  "I  am  your 
infallible  guide  in  all  things.  You  are  to  believe  me  and  look 
to  me  in  all  things  which  you  are  to  do  ;  and  if  any  man  sets 
up  his  conscience  against  me,  he  is  guilty  of  high  treason,  and 
I  will  stain  my  hands  in  his  heart's  blood."  This  is  THE  LOVER 
OF  ORDER  AND  FREEDOM  whom  Mr.  Froude  admires. 

The  third  great  element  of  order  —  that  upon  which  all  soci- 
ety is  based  —  the  great  key-stone  of  society  —  is  THE  SANCTITY 
OF  THE  MARRIAGE  TIE.  Whatever  else  you  interfere  with,  this 
must  not  be  touched,  for  Christ  our  Lord  Himself  said  :  "Those 
whom  God  has  joined  together,  let  no  man  put  asunder."  A 
valid  marriage  can  only  be  dissolved  by  the  angel  of  death.  No 
power  in  Heaven  or  on  earth — much  less  in  Hell  —  can  dissolve 


40 

the  validity  of  a  marriage.  Henry  VIII  had  so  little  respect 
for  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie,  that  he  put  away  from  him 
brutally  a  woman  to  whom  he  was  lawfully  married,  and  took 
in  her  stead,  while  she  was  yet  living,  a  woman  who  was  sup- ' 
posed  to  be  his  own  daughter.  He  married  six  wives.  Two 
of-  them  he  repudiated  —  divorced — two  of  them  he  beheaded, 
one  of  them  died  in  childbirth,  and  the  sixth  and  last,  Catha- 
rine Parr,  had  her  name  down  in  Henry's  book,  at  the  time  of 
his  death,  among  the  list  of  his  victims  ;  he  had  made  the  list 
out,  and  if  the  monster  had  lived  a  few  days  longer,  she  would 
have  been  sacrificed.  This  is  all  a  matter  of  history. 

And  now,  I  ask  the  American  public,  is  it  fair  for  Mr.  Froude, 
or  any  other  living  man,  to  come  and  present  himself  before  an 
American  audience,  an  audience  of  intelligent  people,  and  peo- 
ple that  have  read  history  as  well  as  the  English  historian,  and 
ask  them  to  believe  the  absurd  paradox  that  Henry  VIII  was  art 
admirer  of  order  and  a  hater  of  disorder.  But  Mr.  Froude  says  : 
"  Now  it  is  not  fair  to  refer  to  this.  I  said  in  my  lecture  that  I 
would  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Henry's  matrimonial 
transactions."  Ah  !  Mr.  Froude,  you  were  wise. 

HENRY  VIII  AND  HIS  DISPOSITION  OF  IRISH  LAND. 

"But  at  least,''  he  says,  "in  his  relations  to  Ireland,  I  claim 
that  he  was  a  hater  of  disorder  ;"  and  the  proof  he  gives  is 
the  following :  First  of  all,  lie  says  that  one  great  curse  of 
Ireland  was  the  absentee  landlords,  and  he  is  right.  Now, 
Henry  VIII  put  an  end  to  that  business  in  the  simplest  way  im- 
aginable ;  he  simply  took  the  estates  from  the  absentees  and 
gave  them  to  other  people."  My  friends,  it  sounds  well,  very 
plausible,  this  saying  of  the  English  historian.  Let  us  analyze 
it  a  little.  During  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  between  the  houses 
of  York  and  Lancaster,  which  preceded  the  Reformation  in 
England,  many  English  and  Anglo-Norman  families  went  over 
from  Ireland  to  England  and  joined  in  the  conflict.  It  was  an 
English  question  and  an  English. war,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  numbers  of  the  settlers  retired  from  Ireland  and  left  their 
estates — abandoned  them  entirely.  Others  again,  from  disgust, 
or  because  they  had  large  English  properties,  preferred  to  live 


in  their  own  country,  and  retired  from  Ireland  to  live  in  En- 
gland. So  that  when  Henry  VIII  came  to  the  throne  of  En- 
gland, there  remained  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Pale,  one- 
half  of  Louth,  Westmeath,  Dublin,  Wicklow  and  Wexford. 
Nothing  more.  Henry,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  performed  a 
great  act  of  justice.  He  took  from  these  absentees  their  es- 
tates and  gave  them  —  to  whom?  To  other  Englishmen  of  his 
own  favorites  and  friends.  Now  the  historic  fact  is  this,  that 
the  Irish  people,  as  soon  as  the  English  retired  and  abandoned 
their  estates,  the  Irish  people  came  in  and  possessed  themselves 
of  their  property.  Mark,  my  friends,  that  even  if  the  Irish 
people  had  no  title  to  that  property,  the  very  fact  of  the  En- 
glish having  abandoned  it  gave  them  a  sufficient  title  —  "bona 
relict  a  stint  primis  capientibus  " — things  that  are  abandoned  be- 
long to  the  man  that  gets  first  hold  of  them.  But  much  more 
just  was  the  title  of  the  Irish  people  to  that  land,  because  it  was 
their  own  ;  because  they  were  unjustly  dispossessed  of  it  by  the 
very  men  who  abandoned  it  now.  And  therefore  they  came  in 
with  a  two-fold  title,  namely  :  "The  land  is  ours  because  there 
is  nobody  to  claim  it,  and  even  if  there  were,  the  land  is  ours, 
because  it  was  always  ours,  and  we  never  lost  our  right  to  it." 
When,  therefore,  Henry  VIII,  the  lover  of  order,  dispossessed 
the  absentees  of  their  estates,  he  sent  other  Englishmen  who 
would  reside  there,  and  handed  over  these  estates  to  them. 
Remember,  the  enforcement  of  their  claims  involved  driving  the 
Irish  people  a  second  time  out  of  their  property.  There  is  the 
whole  secret  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  wonderful  beneficence  to 
Ireland  in  giving  us  resident  landlords. 

AN  ILLUSTRATION  TO   THE  POINT. 

Just  loook  at  it  yourselves.  If  you  owned  property  —  there 
are  doubtless  a  great  many  here  owners, of  property — just  pict- 
ure to  yourselves  the  United  States  Government,  or  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  turning  you  out  of  your  property, 
taking  your  houses  and  lots  and  land  from  you  and  giving  them 
to  some  friend  of  his  own,  and  then  saying  to  you  :  "Now,  my 
friends,  you  must  remember  that  I  am  a  lover  of  order.  I  have 
given  you  a.  resident  landlord. 


42 
\ 
HENRY  THE    EIGHTH'S   PRETENDED   REFORMS. 

Henry,  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the  throne,  sent  over  the  Earl 
of  Surrey  to  Ireland,  in  the  year  1520.  Surrey  was  a  brave 
soldier,  a  stern,  energetic  man  ;  and  Henry  thought  by  sending 
him  over  to  Ireland,  and  backing  him  with  a  mighty  army,  he 
would  be  able  to  reduce  to  order  the  disorderly  elements  of  the 
Irish  nation.  That  disorder  reigned  in  Ireland  I  am  the  first 
to  admit,  but  in  tracing  that  to  its  cause,  I  claim  that  the  cause 
was  not  in  any  inherent  love  for  disorder  in  the  Irish  character ; 
they  were  always  ready  to  fight,  I  grant — but  I  hold  and  claim 
that  the  great  cause  of  all  the  disorder  and  turmoil  of  Ireland 
was  the  strange  and  incoherent  legislation  of  England  for  four 
hundred  years  previous  ;  and,  secondly,  the  presence  of  the 
Anglo-Norman  lords  in  Ireland,  who  were  anxious  to  keep  up 
the  disorders  in  the  country  in  order  that  they  might  have  an 
excuse  from  paying  their  duties  to  the  feudal  King.  Surrey 
came  over,  and  tried  the  strong  hand  for  a  time  ;  but  he  found, 
brave  as  he  was,  and  accomplished  in  generalship,  that  the 
Irish  people  were  a  little  too  many  for  him,  and  he  sent  word  to 
Henry:  "These  people,"  he  says,  "can  only  be  subdued  by 
conquering  them  utterly"  —  cutting  off  all  of  them  by  fire  and 
sword.  «  Now,"  he  says,  «« this  you  will  not  be  able  to  do,  be- 
cause the  country  is  too  large,  and  because  the  country  is  so 
geographically  fixed  that  it  is  impossible  for  an  army  to  pene- 
trate its  fastnesses,  and  to  subjugate  the  whole  people.  Then 
he  asserted  that  Henry  VIII  took  up  the  policy  of  reconciliation. 
He  could  not  help  it.  Mr.  Froude  makes  it  a  great  virtue  in 
Henry,  that  he  tried  in  this  manner  to  conciliate  the  Irish  peo- 
ple. He  took  up  that  policy  because  he  had  to  do  it ;  because 
he  could  not  help  it. 

WHAT  SURREY'S  LETTERS  PROVE. 

Now  my  friends,  there  is  one  passage  in  the  correspondence 
between  Surrey  and  Henry  VIII  that  speaks  volumes,  and  it  is 
this  :  When  the  Earl  of  Surrey  arrived  in  Ireland,  he  found 
himself  in  the  midst  of  war  and  confusion,  but  the  people  that 
were  really  at  the  source  of  all  that  confusion  he  declares  to  be 
not  so  much  the  Irish  or  their  chiefs  as  the  Anglg  -  Norman  or 


English  lords  in  Ireland.  Here  is  the  passage  in  question* 
There  were  two  chieftains  of  the  McCarthys  —  McCarthy  Con- 
O'More  and  McCarthy  Rhaud,  or  Red  McCarthy.  Surrey 
writes  of  these  two  men,  to  Henry  VIII,  and  says  :  "These  are 
two  wise  men,  and  more  conformable  to  order  than  some  En- 
glishmen here."  Out  of  the  lips  of  one  of  Ireland's  bitterest  ene- 
mies I  take  an  answer  to  Mr.  Froude's  repeated  allegation  that 
the  Irish  are  so  disorderly  and  such  lovers  of  turmoil  and  con- 
fusion that  the  only  way  to  reduce  us  to  order  is  to  sweep  us 
away  altogether. 

SURREY'S  POLICY. 

The  next  feature  in  Surrey's  policy,  when  he  found  that  he 
could  not  conquer  with  the  sword,  was  to  set  chieftain  against 
chieftain.  And  so  he  writes  to  Henry:  "  I  am  endeavoring, "  says 
he,  «  <  to  perpetuate  the  animosity  between  O'Donnell  and  O^Neill 
of  Ulster •," — here  are  his  words  —  "for  it  would  be  danger  ful 
to  have  them  both  agree  and  join  together  "  It  would  be  dan- 
gerous to  England.  Well  may  Mr.  Froude  say  that  in  the  day 
when  we  Irishmen  are  united  we  shall  be  invincible,  and  no 
power  on  earth  shall  keep  us  slaves.  "It  would  be  dangerful 
to  have  them  to  agree  and  join  together,  and  the  longer  they 
continue  in  war,  the  better  it  will  be  for  your  grace's  poor  sub- 
jects here."  Now,  mark  the  spirit  of  that  letter.  IT  MARKS 

THE  WHOLE  GENIUS  AND  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND'S  TREATMENT  OF 

IRELAND.  He  does  not  speak  of  the  Irish  as  the  subjects  of 
the  King  of  England.  He  has  not  the  slightest  consideration 
for  the  unfortunate  Irish  whom  they  were  pitting  against  each 
other.  "Let  them  bleed  ;"  he  says,  "the  longer  they  continue 
at  war,  and  the  greater  number  of  them  that  are  swept  away, 
the  better  it  ivill  be  for  your  grace* s  poor  subjects  here."  Party 
legislation,  party  law,  intended  only  to  protect  the  English 
settler  and  exterminate  the  Irishman.  This  Sir  John  Davis 
himself,  the  Attorney  -  General  of  James  I,  declared  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  all  English  legislation  for  Ireland  for  four  hundred 
years,  and  was  the  cause  of  all  the  evils  and  miseries  of  Ire- 
land. ^^^ 


V 


lVEHSITY  ) 


44 

ANOTHER  OF  MR.  FROUDE'S  FALLACIES. 

Surrey  retired  after  two  years,  and  then,  according  to  Mr. 
Froude,  Henry  tried  "Home  Rule"  in  Ireland.  Here,  again, 
the  learned  historian  tries  to  make  a  point  for  his  hero.  "Irish- 
men," he  says,  "admire  the  memory  of  this  man.  He  tried 
Home  Rule  with  you,  and  he  found  that  you  were  not  able  to 
govern  yourselves,  and  then  he  was  obliged  to  take  the  whip 
and  drive  you."  Let  us  see  what  kind  of  Home  Rule  Henry 
tried.  One  would  imagine  that  Home  Rule  in  Ireland  meant 
that  Irishmen  should  manage  their  own  affairs  and  make  their 
own  laws.  It  either  means  this,  or  it  means  nothing.  It  is  a 
delusion,  a  mockery,  and  a  snare,  unless  it  means  that  the  Irish 
people  have  a  right  to  assemble  in  their  parliament  and  to  gov- 
ern themselves  by  legislating  for  themselves,  and  making  their 
own  laws.  Did  Henry  the  Eighth's  "Home  Rule"  mean  this? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  All  he  did  was  to  make  the  Earl  of  Kildare 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  or  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  to  please  the 
Irishmen  —  that  is  to  say,  an  Anglo-Norman  Irishman  at  the 
head  of  the  State  for  a  few  years.  In  this  consists  the  whole 
scheme  of  Home  Rule  attributed  by  Mr.  Froude  to  Henry  the 
Eighth.  He  did  not  call  upon  the  Irish  nation  and  say  to  them, 
"  Return  your  members  to  Parliament,  and  I  will  allow  you  to 
make  your  own  laws."  He  did  not  call  upon  the  Irish  chief- 
tains, the  natural  representatives  of  the  nation  ;  the  men  in 
whose  veins  flowed  the  blood  of  Ireland's  chieftainship  for  thou- 
sands of  years.  He  did  not  call  upon  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills, 
the  McCarthymores,  and  the  O'Connors,  and  say  to  them,  "come 
and  assemble,  and  make  laws  for  yourselves  — and,  if  they  are 
just  laws,  I  will  set  my  seal  upon  them,  and  allow  you  to  gov- 
ern Ireland  through  your  own  legislation."  No  ;  but  he  set  up 
a  clique  of  Anglo-Norman  lords,  the  most  unruly,  the  most  law- 
less, and  the  most  restless  pack  we  hear  of,  or  read  of,  in  all 
history.  He  set  these  men  to  take  the  government  of  the  coun- 
try for  a  time  in  their  hands,  and  what  was  the  consequence  ? 
No  sooner  did  he  leave  them  to  govern  than  they  began  to  make 
war  on  the  Irish  —  to  tear  them  to  pieces. 

The  first  thing  that  Kildare  does,  after  his  appointment  in 
1522,  is  to  summon  an  army  and  lay  waste  the  territories  of 


45 

the  Irish  chieftains  around  him,  to  kill  their  people,  and  burn 
their  villages.  After  a  time  they  fell  out  among  themselves. 
The  Anglo-Norman  family  of  the  Butlers  became  jealous  of 
Kildare,  who  was  a  Fitzgerald,  and  they  began  to  accuse  him 
of  treason  —  and  on  two  occasions  it  is  really  true  that  Kildare 
did  carry  on  a  treasonable  correspondence  —  in  the  year  1534 
with  Francis  I,  King  of  France  ;  and  again,  also,  with  Charles 
V,  Emperor  of  Germany.  He  was  sent  to  England  for  the  third 
time,  to  answer  for  his  conduct,  in  1534,  and  then  Henry  put 
him  in  prison.  While  he  was  in  the  Tower,  in  London,  his 
son,  Thomas  Fitzgerald,  who  was  called  "Gilden  Thomas',"  a 
brave  young  man,  revolted  because  his  father  was  in  prison, 
and  they  told  him  that  Henry  intended  to  put  him  to  death. 
Henry  declared  war  against  him,  and  he  against  the  King  of 
England  ;  and  the  consequence  of  that  war  was,  that  the  whole 
province  of  Munster  and  a  great  part  of  Leinster  was  ravaged 
by  the  King's  armies  ;  the  people  were  destroyed,  and  the  towns 
and  villages  burned,  until  at  length  there  was  not  as  much  left 
as  would  feed  man  or  beast.  And  so,  then,  under  the  Home 
Rule  of  Henry  >  the  troubles  with  the  Norman  lords  and  the 
treason  of  Kildare  ended  in  the  ruin  of  nearly  one-half  of  the 
Irish  people. 

Perhaps  you  will  ask  me,  did  the  Irish  people  take  part  in 
that  war,  so  as  to  justify  Henry's  share  in  the  awful  treatment 
they  received  ?  I  answer,  they  took  no  part  in  it  ;  it  was  an 
English  business  from  beginning  to  end.  O'Carroll,  O'Moore 
of  Ossory,  and  O'Connor  —  these  were  the  only  Irish  chieftains 
that  sided  with  the  Geraldines  at  all,  and  drew  the  sword  against 
England  ;  and  they  were  three  chiefs  of  rather  small  importance, 
and  by  no  means  represented  the  Irishy,  as  it  was  called,  of 
Munster  or  any  other  Irish  province.  And  yet  upon  the  Irish 
people  fell  the  avenging  hand  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  armies. 

MR.    FROUDE   SIFTED THE   ENGLISH   STATE   PAPERS. 

Mr.  Froude  goes  on  to  say  that  the  Irish  people,  somehow  or 
other,  got  to  liking  Henry  VIII.  Well,  if  they  did,  I  can't  ad- 
mire their  taste. 

"Henry  VIII  pleased  them,"  says  Mr.  Froude.  "Henry," 
he  says,  "  never  showed  any  disposition  to  dispossess  the  Irish 


46 

people  of  their  lands,  and  to  exterminate  them."  Honest 
Henry  !  gentle  Henry  !  Now,  I  take  Mr.  Froude  up  on  that 
point. 

Fortunately  for  the  Irish  historian,  the  State  papers  are  open 
to  us  as  well  as  to  Mr.  Froude.  What  do  the  State  papers  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth  tell  us  ?  They  tell  us  that  proj- 
ect after  project  was  formed  during  the  reign  of  this  monarch  to 
drive  all  the  Irish  nation  into  Connaught,  over  the  Shannon. 
That  Henry  wished  to  do  away  with  the  Irish  Council  that  gov- 
erned Ireland  by  Home  Rule  ;  Henry  wished  it,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  England  desired  it,  and  one  of  these  State  papers  ends 
in  these  words  :  "  Consequently,  the  promise  brought  to  pass — 
There  shall  no  Irish  be  on  this  side  of  the  waters  of  Shannon, 
unpersecuted,  unsubjected,  and  unexiled  ;  then  shall  the  En- 
glish pale  be  well  two  hundred  miles  long,  and  more."  More 
than  this  :  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  State  papers  of  the  time, 
that  Henry  the  Eighth  immediately  contemplated  the  sweeping 
destruction  and 

UTTER   EXTERMINATION   OF  THE   WHOLE   IRISH   RACE. 

We  find  even  the  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  in  Dublin  writing 
to  his  majesty,  and  here  are  the  very  words  : 

"They  told  me  that  his  verdict  is  impracticable  ;  they  say 
that  the  land  is  very  large  —  by  estimation  as  large  as  England 
• —  so  that,  to  inhabit  the  whole  with  new  inhabitants,  the  num- 
ber would  be  so  great  there  is  no  prince  in  Christendom  that 
conveniently  might  spare  so  many  subjects  to  depart  out  of  his 
regions,  and  to  comprise  the  whole  extirpation  and  total  de- 
struction of  the  Irish.  It  is  a  marvelous  and  sumptuous  charge, 
and  more  impossible,  considering  the  inhabitants  are  of  great 
hardness.  And  mor.e  than  this,  the  Irishmen  can  endure  both 
hunger  and  cold,  and  even  a  want  of  lodging,  more  than  the 
inhabitants  of  any  other  land.  For  if  they,  by  the  precedent 
of  a  conquest,  have  this  land,  we  have  not  read  in  any  chronicle 
of  such  a  conquest  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  ;  nor  have  we 
heart  for  seeking  the  extermination  or  banishment  of  a  whole 
people  !" 

Great  God  !     Is  this  the  man  that  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  was 


47 

the  friend  of  Ireland,  and  never  showed  any  desire  to  take  their 
lands,  and  dispossess  and  destroy  them  ?  This  is  the  man  — 
the  admirer  of  order  and  hater  of  disorder  ;  surely,  he  was 
about  to  create  a  magnificent  order  ;  for  his  idea  was,  if  a  peo- 
ple are  troublesome,  and  you  want  to  reduce  them  to  quiet,  the 
best  and  the  simplest  way  is  to  kill  them  all.  Just  like  some 
of  those  people  in  England  —  those  nurses  we  read  of  a  few 
years  ago — -that  were  farming  out  children.  When  the  child 
was  a  little  fractious,  they  gave  him  a  nice  little  dose  of  poison, 
and  they  called  it  quietness. 

HENRY'S  POLICY  EXPOSED. 

Do  you  know  the  reason  why  Henry  the  Eighth  pleased  the 
Irish  ?  For  there  was  no  doubt  about  it,  they  were  more 
pleased  with  him  than  with  any  English  monarch  up  to  that 
time.  The  reason  is  a  very  simple  one.  He  had  his  own  de- 
signs, but  he  concealed  them  ;  and  while  he  was  meditating, 
like  an  anticipated  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  utter  ruin  and  destruc- 
tion of  all  the  Irish  race,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  keep  it  to 
himself,  and  he  only  comes  out  in  his  state  papers.  He  treated 
the  Irish  with  a  certain  amount  of  courtesy  and  politeness. 
Henry,  with  all  his  faults,  was  a  learned  man  —  an  accom- 
plished man  —  a  man  of  very  elegant  manners  —  a  man  with  a 
bland  smile  —  who  would  give  you  a  warm  shake  of  the  hands. 
It  is  true,  he  might  the  next  day  have  your  head  cut  off,  but 
still  he  had  the  manners  of  a  gentleman  ;  and  it  is  a  singular 
fact,  my  friends,  that  the  two  most  gentlemanly  kings  of  En- 
gland  were  the  greatest  scoundrels  that  ever  lived  —  Henry  the 
Eighth  and  George  the  Fourth.  Accordingly,  he  dealt  with 
the  Irish  people  with  a  certain  amount  of  civility  and  courtesy  ; 
he  did  not  come  among  them  like  all  his  predecessors  before 
him,  saying  :  "You  are  the  King's  enemies  ;  you  are  to  be  put 
to  death  ;  you  are  without  the  pale  of  the  law  ;  you  are  barba- 
rians and  savages  ;  I  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  you."  Not  a 
bit  of  it.  Henry  came  and  said  :  "  Let  us  see  if  we  can  not  ar- 
range our  difficulties  —  if  we  can't  live  in  peace  and  quiet." 
An4  the  Irish  were  charmed  with  his  manners. 


48 

A    PRACTICAL    LESSON. 

Ah  !  my  friends,  it  is  true  that  there  was  a  black  heart  under 
that  smiling  face  ;  and  it  is  also  true  and  veritable  that  Mr. 
Froude's  statement  that  Henry  the  Eighth  had  a  certain  amount 
of  popularity  among  the  Irish  people  proves  that  if  the  English 
only  knew  how  to  treat  us  with  respect  and  courtesy,  and  with 
some  show  of  kindness,  they  would  have  long  since  won  the 
heart  of  Ireland,  instead  of  being  embittered  as  much  by  the 
haughtiness  and  stupid  pride  of  her  sons'  manners,  as  well  as 
by  the  injustice  and  cruelty  of  her  laws.  And  this  is  what  I 
meant  when,  on  last  Tuesday  evening,  I  asserted  that  English 
contempt  for  Ireland  is  the  real  evil  that  lies  deeply  at  the  root 
of  all  the  bad  spirit  that  exists  between  the  two  nations,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  Irish  people  are  too  intellectual,  too 
strong,  too  energetic,  too  pure  of  race  and  blood,  too  ancient 
and  too  proud  to  be  despised. 

HOW  THE  IRISH  THREW  THE  POPE  OVERBOARD. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  went  on  in  his  lectures  to 
give  a  proof  of  the  great  love  the  Irish  people  had  foi  Harry  the 
Eighth,  he  says  that  we  were  so  fond  of  this  King,  that  we 
actually,  at  the  King's  request,  threw  the  Pope  overboard 
Now,  Mr.  Froude,  fond  as  we  were  of  your  glorious  hero,  Harry 
the  Eighth,  we  were  not  so  enamored  of  him we  had  not  fal- 
len so  deeply  in  love  with  him  — as  to  give  up  the  Pope  for 
him. 

THE  TRUTH   ABOUT  THIS  MATTER. 

What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  ?  Henry,  about  the  year  1530 
got  into  difficulties  with  the  Pope,  which  ended  in  his  denying 
the  authority  and  the  supremacy  of  the  head  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  He  then  picked  out  an  absolute  monk,  a  man  who 
had  given  up  his  faith,  a  man  without  a  shadow  of  either  con- 
science, character  or  virtue,  and  he  had  consecrated  tre  first 
Protestant  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  This  was  an  Englishman  by 
the  name  of  Brown,  and  he  sent  George  Brown  over  to  Dublin, 
in  1534,  with  a  commission  to  get  the  Irish  nation  to  follow  in 
the  wake  of  England,  and  throw  the  Pope  overboard  and  ac- 
knowledge Henry's  supremacy.  Brown  arrived  in  Dublin,  and 


49 

he  called  the  bishops  together  —  the  bishops  of  the  Catholic 
Church  —  and  he  said  to  them,  you  must  change  your  allegi- 
ance, you  must  give  up  the  Pope  and  take  Henry,  the  King  of 
England,  in  his  stead.  The.  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  in  these 
days,  was  an  Englishman  ;  his  name  was  Cramer  ;  the  moment 
he  heard  these  words,  he  raised  up  at  the  council-board  and 
said:  "What  blasphemy  is  this  I  hear?  Ireland  will  never 
change  her  faith.  Ireland  will  never  renounce  her  Catholicity, 
and  she  would  have  to  do  it  by  renouncing  the  head  of  the 
Catholic  Church."  All  the  bishops  of  Ireland  followed  the 
Primate  ;  all  the  priests  of  Ireland  followed  the  Primate  ;  and 
George  Brown  wrote  a  most  lugubrious  letter  home  to  his  pro- 
tector, Thomas  Cromwell,  telling  him:  "lean  make  nothing 
of  these  people,  and  I  would  return  to  England,  only  I  am 
afraid  the  King  would  have  my  head  taken,  off." 

THE  IRISH  PARLIAMENT  OF  1537. 

Three  years  later,  however,  Brown  and  the  Lord  -  Deputy 
summoned  a  Parliament,  and  it  was  at  this  Parliament  of  1537, 
according  to  Mr.  Froude,  that  Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overboard. 
Now  what  are  the  facts  ?  A  Parliament  was  assembled  from 
time  immemorial  in  Ireland.  Whenever  the  Parliament  was 
assembled,  there  were  three  delegates,  called  Proctors,  from 
every  Catholic  diocese  in  Ireland,  who  sat  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  by  virtue  of  their  office — three  priests  —  from  every 
diocese  in  Ireland.  When  the  Parliament  was  called,  the  very 
first  thing  that  they  did  was  to  banish  the  three  Proctors  who 
came  from  every  diocese  in  Ireland,  and  to  deprive  them  of 
their  seats  in  the  House.  Without  the  slightest  justice,  without 
the  slightest  show  or  pretense  of  either  right,  or  law,  or  justice, 
the  Proctors  were  excluded,  and  so  the  ecclesiastical  element  of 
Ireland,  the  Church  element,  was  precluded  from  that  Parlia- 
ment of  1537.  Then,  partly  by  bribes  and  partly  by  threats, 
the  venal  Parliament  of  the  Pale,  the  English  Pale,  the  Par- 
liament of  the  region  of  the  rotten  little  boroughs  that  sur- 
rounded Dublin  in  the  five  half -counties,  we  have  seen  them 
willing  to  take  the  oath  that  Henry  VIII  was  the  head  of  the 
Church ;  an,d  this  Mr.  Froude  calls  the  apostasy  of  the  Irish 


5° 

nation.  With  this  strange  want  of  knowledge  —  for  I  can  call  it 
nothing  else — of  our  religion,  he  attests  that  Ireland  remained 
Catholic,  even  though  he  asserts  that  she  gave  up  the  Pope. 
"  They  took  the  oath,"  he  says,  "  bishops  and  all,  took  the 
oath  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  supremacy,  and  they  didn't  become 
Protestants  ;  they  still  remained  Catholics,  and  the  reason  why 
they  refused  to  take  the  same  oath  to  Elizabeth  was,  that  Eliza- 
beth insisted  upon  the  Protestant  religion  as  well  as  the  su- 
premacy. 

WHO  ARE  CATHOLICS  ? 

Now  I  answer  Mr.  Froude  at  once,  to  set  him  right  on  this 
point.  The  Catholic  Church  teaches,  and  always  has  taught, 
that  no  man  is  a  Catholic  who  is  not  in  the  communion  of  obe- 
dience with  the  Pope  of  Rome.  Henry  VIII,  who  was  a 
learned  man,  had  too  much  logic  and  too  much  theology,  and 
too  much  sense  to  become  what  is  called  a  Prot  stant.  He 
never  embraced  the  doctrines  of  Luther,  and  he  held  on  to 
every  iota  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  to  the  very  last  day  of  his 
life,  save  and  except  that  he  refused  to  acknowledge  the  Pope, 
and  on  the  day  that  Henry  VIII  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
Pope,  Henry  III  ceased  to  be  a  Catholic.  To  pretend,  there- 
fore, or  to  trust,  that  the  Irish  people  were  so  ignorant  as  to 
imagine  that  the  King  threw  the  Pope  overboard,  and  still  re- 
mained a  Catholic,  is  to  offer  to  the  genius  and  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  Ireland  a  gratuitous  insult. 

EIGHT  BISHOPS   APOSTATISED. 

It  is  true  that  some  eight  of  the  bishops  apostatised  —  I  can 
call  it  nothing  else.  They  took  the  oath  of  supremacy  to 
Henry  VIII.  Their  names,  living  in  the  execration  of  Irish 
history,  were  Eugene  Maginnis,  Bishop  of  Down,  in  Con- 
naught  ;  Roland  Burke,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  Bishop  of  Clon- 
fert ;  Folrence  Glanone,  Bishop  of  Clonnacnoise ;  Matthew 
Sanders,  Bishop  of  Lamelas  ;  Hugh  O'Sullivan,  Bishop  ofClan- 
forth  —  five  bishops  apostatised.  The  rest  of  Ireland's  episco- 
pacy remained  faithful.  George  Brown,  the  apostate  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  acknowledges,  in  a  letter  written  at  this  time, 
that  of  all  the  priests  in  the  Diocese  of  Dublin,  he  can  only 


S' 

persuade  three  to  take  the  oath  to  Henry  VIII.  There  was  a 
priest  down  in  Cork,  he  was  an  Irishman — a  rector  in  the 
See  of  Shannon  —  and  his  name  was  Dominick  Terry,  and 
he  was  offered  the  Bishopric  of  Cork,  if  he  took  the  oath, 
and  he  took  it.  There  was  a  man  by  the  name  of  William 
Myrragh,  another  priest;  he  was  offered  the  Diocese  of  Kil- 
dare,  if  he  took  the  oath,  and  he  took  it.  There  was  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Alexander  Deveraux,  Abbot  of  Dunbrody,  a 
Cistercian  monk  ;  he  was  offered  the  Diocese  of  Ferns,  in  the 
County  Wexford,  and  he  took  it.  These  are  all  the  names  that 
represent  the  national  apostasy  of  Ireland — eight  men.  Out 
of  so  many  hundreds,  eight  were  found  wanting  ;  and  yet  Mr. 
Froude  turns  around,  quietly  and  calmly,  and  tells  us  that  the 
Irish  bishops,  priests  and  people  were  found  wanting,  and  threw 
the  Pope  overboard. 

MR.  FROUDE  BROUGHT  UP  WITH  A  ROUND  TURN. 

He  makes  another  assertion,  and  I  regret  he  made  it  ;  I  re- 
gret it  because  there  is  much  in  the  learned  gentleman  that  I 
admire  and  esteem.  He  asserts  that  the  bishops  of  Ireland,  in 
those  days,  were  immoral  men ;  that  they  had  families,  that 
they  were  not  at  all  like  the  venerable  men  whom  we  see  es- 
tablished in  the  episcopacy  to  -  day.  Now,  I  answer,  there  is 
not  a  shred  of  testimony  to  bear  up  Mr.  Froude  in  this  wild  as- 
sertion. I  have  read  the  history  of  Ireland — national,  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  —  as  far  as  I  could,  and  nowhere  have  I  seen 
even  an  allegation,  much  less  a  proof,  of  immorality  against  the 
Irish  clergy  and  their  bishops,  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation. 
But  perhaps  when  Mr.  Froude  said  this  of  the  bishops,  he  meant 
the  apostate  bishops  ;  if  so,  I  am  willing  to  grant  him  whatever 
he  chooses,  in  regard  to  them,  and  whatever  charge  he  lays 
upon  them,  the  heavier  it  is,  the  more  satisfied  am  I  to  see  it 
coming. 

The  next  passage  in  the  relations  of  Henry  VIII  to  Ireland, 
goes  to  prove  that  Ireland  did  not  throw  the  Pope  overboard. 
My  friends,  in  the  year  1541,  a  Parliament  assembled  in  Dub- 
lin, and  declared  that  Henry  VIII  was  King  of  Ireland.  They 
had  been  four  hundred  years  or  more  fighting  for  that  title  ;  at 


II 

length  it  was  conferred  by  the  Irish  Parliament  upon  the  En- 
glish monarch.  Two  years  later,  in  gratitude  to  the  Irish 
Parliament,  Henry  called  all  the  Irish  chieftains  over  to  a 
grand  assembly  at  Greenwich,  and  on  the  1st  of  July,  1643,  he 
gave  the  Irish  chieftains  their  English  titles.  O'Neill  of  Ulster 
got  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrone  ;  the  glorious  O'Donnell,  the 
title  of  Earl  of  Tyrconnel ;  Urick  Mac  William  Burke  was 
called  the  Earl  of  Clanricarde  ;  Fitzpatrick  was  given  the  name 
of  the  Baron  of  Ossory,  and  they  returned  to  Ireland  with  their 
new  English  titles. 

HENRY'S  GENEROSITY. 

Henry,  free,  open  -  handed,  generous  fellow  as  he  was  —  for 
he  was  really  very  generous — -he  gave  them  not  only  titles,  but 
he  gave  them  a  vast  amount  of  property,  which  happened  to  be 
stolen  from  the  Catholic  Church.  He  was  an  exceedingly 
generous  man  with  other  people's  goods.  He  had  a  good  deal  of 
that  spirit  which  Artemas  Ward  made  mention  of  when  he  said 
"he  was  quite  content  to  see  his  wife's  first  cousin  go  to  the 
war."  In  order  to  promote  reformation,  not  Protestantism,  but 
his  own  reformation  in  Ireland,  Henry  gave  to  these  Irish  Earls, 
with  their  English  titles,  all  the  abbey  lands,  all  the  convents 
and  all  the  churches  that  lay  in  their  possessions.  The  con- 
sequence was,  he  enriched  them,  and,  to  the  eternal  shame  of 
the  O'Neill  and  the  O'Donnell,  MacWilliam,  Burke  and  Fitz- 
patrick of  Ossory,  they  had  the  cowardice  and  weakness  to 
accept  the  gifts  at  his  hands.  Then  they  came  home  with  the 
spoils  of  the  monasteries  and  their  English  titles. 

Now,  mark  !  The  Irish  people  were  as  true  as  flint  on  that 
day  when  the  Irish  chieftains  were  false  to  their  country. 
Nowhere  in  the  previous  history  of  Ireland  do  we  read  of  the 
clans  rising  against  their  chieftains  ;  nowhere  do  we  read  of 
the  O'Neill  and  the  O'Donnell  being  despised  by  their  own 
people,  but  on  this  occasion,  when  they  came  home.  Mark 
what  follows.  O'Brien,  Earl  of  Thomond,  when  he  arrived  in 
Munster,  found  half  of  his  dominions  in  revolt  against  him. 
The  Burkes  of  Connaught,  as  soon  as  they  heard  that  Mac- 
William,  their  natural  leader  —  the  Earl  who  had  accepted  the 


53 

abbey  lands  —  the  very  first  thing  they  did  was  to  depose  him 
and  set  up  another  man,  not  by  the  title  of  the  Earl  of  Clan- 
ricarde,  but  by  the  title  of  MacWilliam  Ulrick  De  Burgh. 
When  O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone,  came  home  to  Ulster^  he  was 
taken,  by  his  own  son,  clapped  into  jail,  and  he  died  there. 
O'Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyrconnell,  came  home,  and  his  own  son 
and  all  his  people  rose  up  against  him,  and  drove  him  from 
their  midst. 

Now,  I  say,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  Mr.  Froude  is  not  justi- 
fied in  stating  that  Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overboard  ;  for, 
remember  these  chieftains  did  not  renounce  the  Catholic  relig- 
ion, according  to  Mr.  Froude,  they  only  renounced  the  Papal 
supremacy  ;  they  did  not  come  home  Protestants,  they  only 
came  home  schismatics  and  bad  Catholics,  and  Ireland  would 
not  stand  that. 

WHAT    FOLLOWED    AFTER    HENRY   VIII   DIED. 

Henry  died  in  1547,  and  I  verily  believe  that,  with  all  the 
badness  of  his  heart,  if  he  had  lived  for  a  few  years  longer,  his 
life  would  not  have  been  so  much  a  curse  as  a  blessing  to  Ire- 
land, for  the  simple  reason  that  those  who  came  after  him  were 
worse  than  himself. 

He  was  succeeded  by  his  child  -  son,  Edward  VI.  Edward 
was  under  the  care  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset.  Somerset  was  a 
thorough  -  going  Protestant,  and  did  not  believe  in  the  Papal 
Supremacy,  in  the  Mass,  in  the  Sacraments  ;  in  any  thing  that 
formed  the  especial  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He  was 
opposed  to  them  all,  and  he  sent  over  to  Ireland  his  orders,  as  soon 
as  Henry  was  dead,  and  when  young  Edward  was  proclaimed 
King,  to  put  the  laws  in  force  against  Catholics.  The  churches 
were  pillaged,  the  Bishops  and  Priests  driven  out,  and,  as  Mr. 
Froude  puts  it,  "The  emblems  of  superstition  were  pulled 
down."  The  emblems  of  superstition,  as  Mr.  Froude  calls 
them,  were  the  figures  of  Christ  Jesus,  crucified,  the  statues  of 
His  Blessed  Mother,  and  the  statues  and  pictures  of  His  saints. 
All  these  things  were  pulled  down  and  destroyed,  the  crucifix 
was  trampled  under  foot,  and  the  ancient  statues  of  Our  Lady 
were  public  ally  burned  ;  the  churches  were  rifled  and  sacked. 


54 

Then,  as  Mr.  Froude  eloquently  puts  it,  "  Ireland  was  taught 
a  lesson  that  she  must  yield  to  the  new  order  of  things  or  stand 
by  the  Pope."  "And  Irish  traditions,"  he  says,  "and  ideas 
become  inseparably  linked  with  religion."  Glory  to  you,  Mr. 
Froude  !  He  goes  on  to  say,  in  eloquent,  language,  "Ireland 
chose  its  place  on  the  Pope's  side,  and  chose  it  irrevocably  ; 
and,  from  that  time,  the  CAUSE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  RELIGION 

AND     IRISH    INDEPENDENCE    BECAME     INSEPARABLY    ONE."       If 

the  learned  gentleman  were  present,  I  have  no  doubt  he  would 
rise  up  and  bow  his  thanks  to  you  for  the  hearty  manner  in 
which  you  have  received  his  sentiments.  I  am  sure,  as  he  is 
not  here,  he  will  not  take  it  ill  of  me  when  I  thank  you  in  his 
name. 

QUEEN  MARY. 

Edward  died  after  a  short  reign,  and  then  came  Queen  Mary, 
who  is  known  in  England  by  the  name  of  "Bloody  Mary." 
She  was  a  Catholic,  and,  without  doubt,  she  persecuted  her 
Protestant  subjects.  But  Mr.  Froude  makes  this  remark  of 
her.  In  his  lecture,  he  says:  "There  was  no  persecution  of 
Protestants  in  Ireland,  because  there  were  no  Protestants  there 
to  be  persecuted."  He  goes  on  to  say,  "Those  who  were  in 
the  land  fled  when  Mary  came  to  the  throne." 

Now,  my  friends,  I  must  take  the  learned  historian  to  task  in 
this.  The  insinuation  is,  that  if  any  Protestant  had  been  in 
Ireland,  that  the  Irish  Catholic  people  would  have  persecuted 
them.  The  impression  that  he  tries  to  leave  on  the  mind  is, 
that  we  Catholics  are  only  too  glad  to  imbrue  our  hands  in  the 
blood  of  our  fellow  -  citizens  on  the  question  of  religious  differ- 
ences and  of  doctrine.  And  he  goes  on  to  confirm  this  impres- 
sion by  saying,  "  The  Protestants  that  were  in  Ireland  fled." 
As  much  as  to  say,  whatever  chance  they  had  in  another 
country,  they  had  no  chance  in  Ireland. 

Now  what  are  the  historic  facts  ?  The  facts  are,  that  during 
the  reign  of  Edward  VI,  and  during  the  later  years  of  his 
father's  reign,  certain  apostates  from  the  Catholic  faith  were 
sent  over  to  Ireland  as  bishops  —  men  whom  even  English 
history  convicts  and  condemns  of  every  crime.  As  soon  as 


55 

Mary  came  to  the  throne,  these  gentlemen  did  not  wait  to  be 
ordered  out ;  they  went  out  of  their  own  accord.  It  was  not  a 
question  at  all  of  the  Irish  people  ;  it  was  a  question  between 
the  Catholics  of  England  and  certain  English  bishops  foisted 
upon  the  Irish  Church.  They  thought  it  was  the  best  of  their 
play  to  clear  out — and  I  verily  believe  they  acted  very 
prudently. 

But  as  far  as  regards  the  Irish  people,  I  claim  for  my  native 
land  that  SHE  NEVER  PERSECUTED  ON  ACCOUNT  OF  RELIGION. 
I  am  proud,  in  addressing  an  American  audience,  to  be  able 
to  make  this  high  claim  for  Ireland  —  that  the  genius  of  the 
Irish  people  is  not  a  persecuting  genius.  There  is  not  a  people 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  so  attached  to  the  Catholic  religion  as 
the  Irish  race.  But  there  is  not  a  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  so  unwilling  to  persecute  or  to  shed  blood  in  the  cause  of 
religion  as  the  Irish.  And  here  are  my  proofs.  Mr.  Froude 
says  that  the  Protestants  made  off  out  of  Ireland  as  soon  as 
Mary  came  to  the  throne.  But  Sir  James  Ware,  in  his  annals, 
tells  us:  "That  the  Protestants  were  being  persecuted  in 
England  under  Mary,  and  they  actually  fled  over  to  Ireland  for 
protection."  He  even  gave  the  names  of  some  of  them.  He 
tells  us  that  John  Harvey,  Abel  Ellis,  John  Edmunds  and 
Henry  Hore,  all  natives  of  Cheshire,  came  over  to  Ireland  to 
avoid  the  persecution  in  England.  They  brought  a  Welsh 
Protestant  minister,  by  the  name  of  Thomas  Jones,  with  them. 
Nay,  more  :  These  four  gentlemen  were  received  so  cordially, 
and  were  welcomed  so  hospitably,  that  they  actually  founded 
highly  respectable  mercantile  houses  in  Dublin. 

A    TELLING    INSTANCE    OF    IRISH    LOVE    OF    FREEDOM    OF    CON- 
SCIENCE. 

We  have  another  magnificent  proof  that  the  Irish  people  are 
not  a  persecuting  race.  When  James  II  assembled  his  Catholic 
Parliament  in  Ireland  in  1680,  though  they  had  been  more  than 
a  hundred  years  under  the  lash  of  their  Protestant  fellow  - 
citizens,  robbed,  plundered,  imprisoned  and  put  to  death  for 
their  conscientious  adherence  to  the  Catholic  faith.  At  last  the 
wheel  got  turned,  and,  in  1689,  the  Catholics  went  up  and  the 


Protestants  went  down.  That  Parliament  met  to  the  number  of 
228  members.  The  Celt  —  the  Irish  Catholic  element  —  was  in 
a  sweeping  majority.  What  was  the  first  law  that  they  made? 
The  very  first  law  that  Catholic  Parliament  made  was  as  fol- 
lows :  "We  hereby  decree  that  it  is  the  law  of  Ireland,  that 
neither  now  nor  ever  again  shall  any  man  be  persecuted  for  his 
religion.  That  was  the  retaliation  we  took  on  them.  Was  it 
not  magnificent?  Was  it  not  a  grand,  magnificent  specimen  of 
that  spirit  of  Christianity  ;  that  spirit  of  forgiveness  and  charity, 
without  which,  if  it  is  not  within  the  Christian's  heart,  all  the 
dogmatic  truths  that  were  ever  revealed  won't  save  or  ennoble 
him. 

MR.    FROUDE   AND    GOOD    QUEEN    BESS. 

And  now,  coming  to  good  "Queen  Bess,"  as  she  is  called, 
Mr.  Froude  lays  it  on  her  very  heavy.  He  speaks  of  her  rule 
in  language  as  terrific  in  its  severity  as  I  could,  and  far  more  ; 
for  I  have  not  the  learning  or  the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Froude. 
But  he  says  one  little  thing  of  her  worthy  of  remark.  He  says 
Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword  ;  but  when  she  did 
draw  it  she  never  sheathed  it  until  the  star  of  freedom  was  fixed 
upon  her  banner^  never  to  pale  "  That  is  a  very  eloquent  pas- 
sage. But  the  soul  of  eloquence  is  truth.  Is  it  true,  histor- 
ically, that  Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword  ?  I  an- 
swer it  by  Irish  annals  —  I  answer  it  by  the  history  of  Ireland , 
Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  in  1558.  The  following  year,  in 
1559,  there  was  a  Parliament  assembled,  by  her  order,  in  Dub- 
lin. What  do  you  think  were  the  laws  that  were  made  in  that 
Parliament  ?  It  was  not  a  Catholic  Parliament,  but  an  Irish 
Parliament.  It  consisted  of  seventy-six  gentlemen.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Parliament  in  Ireland  used  to  have  from  two- 
hundred  and  twenty  to  two  hundred  and  thirty  members.  This 
Parliament  of  Elizabeth  consisted  of  seventy-six  picked  men. 
The  laws  that  Parliament  made  were,  first  :  "Any  clergyman 
not  using  the  "Book  of  Common  Prayer  —  the  Protestant 
Prayer  Book  —  or,  using  any  other  form  of  prayer,  either  in 
•public  or  private,  the  first  time  he  is  discovered,  is  to  be  de- 
prived of  his  benefice  for  one  year,  and  suffer  imprisonment  in. 


57 

jail  for  six  months.  For  a  second  offense  he  is  to  forfeit  his  in- 
come forever,  and  to  be  put  into  jail,  to  be  let  out  only  at  the 
Queen's  good  pleasure  " — whenever  she  thought  proper.  "For 
the  third  offense  he  was  to  be  put  in  close  confinement  for' life." 
This  is  the  lady  that  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword,  my 
friends.  Remember,  this  was  the  very  year  after  she  was 
crowned  Queen.  She  scarcely  waited  a  year,  and  yet  this  was 
the  woman  that  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword ! 

So  much  for  the  priests  ;  now  for  the  laymen.  If  any  lay- 
man was  discovered  using  another  Prayer  Book,  except  Eliz- 
abeth's Prayer  Book,  he  was  put  into  jail  for  a  year,  and  if 
caught  doing  that  a  second  time,  he  was /w^  in  prison  for  the 
rest  of  his  life.  Every  Sunday  the  people  were  obliged  to  go 
to  the  Protestant  Church.  If  any  one  refused  to  go,  for  every 
time  he  refused  he  was  fined  about  twelve  pence  —  that  would 
be  about  twelve  shillings  of  our  present  money.  And  besides 
the  fine  of  twelve  pence,  he  was  to  incur  the  censures  of  the 
Church.  "The  star  of  freedom,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "was 
never  to  pale,"  and  "  the  Queen  drew  the  sword  in  the  cause 
of  the  star  of  freedom."  But,  my  friends,  freedom  meant — 
whatever  in  Elizabeth's  mind  it  meant  —  freedom  meant  a 
slavery  ten-fold  increased  by  the  addition  of  persecution  to  the 
other  miseries  of  the  unfortunate  Irish.  If  this  be  Mr.  Froude's 
ideal  of  the  "star  of  freedom,"  all  I  can  say  is,  the  sooner 
such  star  falls  from  the  firmament  of  heaven  and  the  world's 
history,  the  better. 

THE    CONDITION    OF   IRELAND. 

In  what  state  was  the  Irish  Church  ?  We  have  the  authority 
of  the  Protestant  historian,  Leland,  that  there  were  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty  parish  churches  in  Meat.h,  and,  in  a  few  years' 
time,  there  were  only  one  hundred  and  two  of  them  left  with 
the  roofs  on.  "All  over  the  kingdom,"  says  Leland,  "the 
people  were  left  without  any  religious  worship,  and  under  the 
pretext  of  obeying  the  orders  of  the  State,  they  seized  all  the 
most  valuable  furniture  of  the  churches,  which  they  exposed  for 
sale,  without  decency  of  reserve.  A  number  of  hungry  ad- 
venturers were  let  loose  upon  the  Irish  Church  and  the  Irish 


58 

people,  by  Elizabeth.  They  not  only  robbed  them,  but  plun- 
dered their  churches,  and  shed  the  blood  of  the  bishops,  priests, 
and  the  people  of  Ireland,  in  torrents,  as  Mr.  Froude  himself 
acknowledges.  He  tells  us  "that  in  the  second  rebellion  of 
the  Geraldines,  such  was  the  state  to  which  the  fair  province 
of  Munster  was  reduced,  that  you  might  get  through  the  land, 
from  the  furthermost  point  of  Kerry,  until  you  came  into  the 
eastern  plains  of  Tipperary,  and  you  would  not  even  hear  as 
much  as  the  whistle  of  the  plow- boy,  or  behold  the  face  of  a 
living  man,  and  that  the  trenches  and  ditches  were  full  of  the 
corpses  of  the  people  ;"  that  "  the  country  was  reduced  to  a 
howling,  desolate  wilderness."  The  poet  Spencer  describes  it 
in  the  most  terrible  and  graphic  manner  ;  and  he,  even  case- 
hardened  as  he  was,  being  one  of  the  plunderers  and  persecut- 
ors himself,  he  acknowledges  that  "  the  state  of  Munster  was 
such  that  no  man  could  look  upon  it  with  a  dry  eye."  Sir 
Henry  Sydney,  one  of  Elizabeth's  own  deputies,  speaks  of  the 
Irish  Church,  "so  deformed,"  he  says,  "and  overthrown  a 
Church  ;  there  is  not,  I  am  sure,  in  any  religion  where  the 
name  of  Christ  is  professed,  such  horrible  spectacles  to  behold, 
as  the  burning  of  villages,  the  ruin  of  churches,  yea,  the  views 
of  the  bones  and  skulls  of  the  dead,  who,  partly  by  murder  and 
partly  by  famine,  have  died  in  the  fields,  is,  in  truth,  such  a 
sight  as  hardly  any  Christian,  with  any  eyes,  can  behold." 
Her  own  minister,  her  own  agent,  there  is  his  testimony  of  the 
state  to  which  this  terrible  woman  had  reduced  unhappy 
Ireland.  Strafford,  another  English  authority  and  statesman, 
says,  "  I  knew  it  was  bad,  very  bad,  in  Ireland,  but  that  it 
was  so  terrible  I  did  not  believe." 

THE   OBJECT    IN    THIS. 

And,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  persecution,  there  was  still  a 
reigning  idea  in  the  minds  of  the  English  Government  —  it  was 
still  the  old  idea  of  rooting  out  and  extirpating  the  Irish  from 
their  own  land,  to  which  was  added  the  element  of  religious 
discord  and  persecution.  It  was  evident  that  this  was  still  in 
the  mind  of  the  English  people.  Elizabeth,  who,  Mr.  Froude 
says,  "never  dispossessed  an  Irishman  of  an  acre  of  his  land  " — 


59 

Elizabeth,  during  the  terrible  war  which  she  waged,  in  the 
latter  days  of  her  reign,  against  heroic  Hugh  O'Neil,  in  Ulster, 
threw  out  such  hints  as  these:  "The  more  slaughter  there  is, 
the  better  it  will  be  for  my  English  subjects,  the  more  land  they 
will  get."  This  woman,  whom  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  " never 
confiscated,  and  would  never  listen  to  the  idea  of  the  confisca- 
tion of  property  ;"  this  woman,  when  the  Geraldines  were  de- 
stroyed, took  the  whole  of  their  vast  estates — millions  of  acres — 
of  the  Earl  of  Detmord,  and  gave  them  all  quietly  and  calmly 
to  certain  Englishmen  from  Lancashire,  Devonshire,  Somerset- 
shire and  Cheshire.  And  in  the  face  of  these  truths,  recorded 
and  stamped  on  the  world's  history,  I  can  not  understand  how 
any  man  can  come  in  and  say  of  this  atrocious  woman,  "What- 
ever she  did,  she  intended  for  the  good  of  Ireland." 

In  1602  she  died,  after  reigning  forty-one  years,  leaving 
Ireland,  at  the  hour  of  her  death,  one  vast  slaughter-house. 
Munster  was  reduced  to  the  state  in  which  Spencer  described  it. 
Connaught  was  reduced  to  a  wilderness,  through  the  rebellion 
of  the  Clanricarde's  of  the  Burke  family.  Ulster,  through  the 
agency  of  Lord  Mountjoy,  was  left  the  very  picture  of  desola- 
tion. The  glorious  red  Hugh  O'Donnell,  and  the  magnificent 
Hugh  O'Neil,  were  crushed  and  defeated  after  fifteen  years'  war  ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  when  James  the  First  succeeded 
Elizabeth,  he  found  Ireland  almost  a  wilderness. 

JAMES  I. 

What  did  he  do  ?  He,  at  first,  promised  the  Irish  that  they 
should  keep  their  lands.  He  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  En- 
gland in  1603,  and  for  four  years — I  must  give  him  the  credit 
for  four  years  —  he  kept  his  word.  In  1607,  through  a  sham 
conspiracy,  Hugh  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell  Tyrconnel  fled  from  the 
country,  and  then  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  the  agent  of  the  En- 
glish King,  developed  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  schemes 
that  was  ever  heard  of,  in  the  relations  between  one  country 
and  another.  They  took  the  whole  of  the  province  of  Ulster, 
every  square  inch  of  Ireland's  richest  and  finest  province,  and 
cleared  out  THE  WHOLE  IRISH  POPULALION,  and  handed  il  over 
bodily  to  settlers  /rent  England  and  Scotland,  It  was  called 


6o 

the  "  PLANTATION  of  Ulster."  They  gave  to  the  Protestant 
Archbishop  of  Armagh,  forty-three  thousand  acres  of  the  finest 
land  in  Ireland  ;  they  gave  to  Trinity  College,  in  Dublin, 
30,000  acres  ;  they  gave  to  the  skinners,  drysalters  and  cord- 
wainers,  those  corporations  and  trades  of  London,  208,000 
acres  ;  they  brought  over  colonies  of  Scotch  Presbyterian,  and 
English  Protestants,  and  gave  them  lots  of  1,000,  1,500  and 
2,000  acres  of  land  in  extent,  making  them  swear,  as  a  condi- 
tion, that  they  would  not  as  much  as  employ  one  single  Irish 
Catholic,  or  let  them  come  near  them.  Thus  millions  of  acres 
of  the  finest  land  in  Ireland  were  taken,  at  one  single  blow, 
from  the  Irish  people,  and  they  were  thrust  out  of  all  their 
property. 

MR.  FROUDE  AGAIN  DISSECTED. 

Mr.  Froude,  in  his  rapid  historical  sketch,  says:  "But  all 
this,  of  course,  bred  revenge."  He  tells  us,  "In  1641  the 
Irish  rose  in  rebellion."  They  did.  Now  he  makes  one  state- 
ment, and  with  the  refutation  of  that  statement,  I  close  this 
lecture. 

I  know,  my  friends,  to  many  among  you  these  lectures  must 
appear  dry  ;  we  can  not  help  it  ;  history  generally  is  a  dry  sub- 
ject. Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that  in  the  rising  under  Sir  Phelan 
O'Neill,  in  1642,  there  were  thirty -eight  thousand  Protestants 
murdered  by  the  Irish.  Now,  that  is  a  grave  charge  ;  that  is 
one  of  the  most  terrific  things  to  accuse  .a  people  of  if  it  be  not 
true.  If  it  be  true,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  blush  for  my  fathers. 
But  if  it  be  not  true,  why  repeat  it  ?  Why  not,  in  the  name  of 
God,  wipe  it  out  with  disdain  from  the  record  of  history?  Is 
it  true  ?  The  Irish  rose  under  Sir  Phelan  O'Neill,  and  at  that 
time  there  was  a  Protestant  person  in  Ireland  calling  himself 
"a  minister  of  the  word  of  God."  He  gave  his  account  of  the 
whole  transaction  in  a  letter  to  the  people,  begging  of  them  to 
help  their  fellow-Protestants  in  Ireland.  Here  are  his  words: 
"It  is  the  intention  of  the  Irish  to  massacre  all  the  English. 
On  Saturday  they  were  to  disarm  them,  on  Sunday  to  seize  all 
their  cattle  and  goods,  and  on  Monday  they  were  to  cut  all  the 
English  throats.  The  former  they  executed,  the  third  one— 


6i 

this  massacre — they  failed  in."  Petit,  an  English  authority, 
tells  us  that  there  were  30,000  Protestants  massacred  at  that 
time.  A  man  by  the  name  of  May,  another  historian,  puts  it 
at  200,000;  he  thought;  "In  for  a  penny  in  for  a  pound." 
But  there  was  an  honest  Protestant  clergyman  in  Ireland,  who 
examined  minutely  into  the  details  of  the  whole  conspiracy  and 
all  the  evils  that  came  from  it.  What  does  he  say?  " I  have 
discovered,"  he  says,  and  gives  the  proof  from  state  papers  and 
authentic  records,  "that  the  Irish  Catholics  in  that  rising  mas- 
sacred 2,100  Protestants,  that  other  Protestants  said  that  there 
were  1,600  more,  and  that  some  Irish  authorities  themselves 
say  that  there  were  300  more,  making  altogether  4,000  persons." 
This  is  the  massacre  that  Mr.  Froude  says,  as  he  just  tosses  it 
off  as  calmly  as  if  it  were  Gospel,  "  38,000  Protestants  were 
massacred  ;"  that  is  to  say,  he  has  multiplied  the  original  num- 
ber by  ten,  where,  as  Mr.  Warner,  the  authority  in  question, 
actually  says,  "That  there  were  2,100,  and,"  he  continues, 
"I  am  not  willing  to  believe  in  the  additional  numbers  that 
have  been  sent  in."  This  is  the  way  that  history  is  written  ; 
this  is  the  way  that  people  are  left  under  false  impressions. 

THE  VERDICT   DEMANDED. 

Now,  from  all  we  have  seen  of  the  terrible  nature  of  the 
evils  which  fell  upon  Ireland  in  the  days  of  Henry  the  Eighth, 
in  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  in  the  days  of  James  the  First,  I  ask 
you,  people  of  America,  to  set  these  two  thoughts  before  your 
mind,  contrast  them,  and  give  one  a  fair  verdict. 

FATHER  BURKE'S  PERORATION. 

Is  there  any  thing  recorded  in  history,  more  terrible  than  the 
persistent,  undying  resolution  so  clearly  manifested  by  the  En- 
glish Government  to  root  out,  extirpate  and  destroy  the  people 
of  Ireland  ?  Is  there  any  thing  recorded  in  history  more  unjust 
than  this  systematic,  constitutional  robbery  of  a  people,  whom 
the  Almighty  God  created  in  that  island,  to  whom  He  gave  that 
island,  and  who  had  the  aboriginal  right  to  every  inch  of  Irish 
soil? 

On  the  other  hand,  can  history  bring  forth  a  more  magnifi- 


62 

cent  spectacle  than  the  calm,  firm,  united  resolution  with  which 
Ireland  stood  in  defense  of  her  religion,  and  gave  up  all  things 
rather  than  sacrifice  what  she  conceived  to  be  the  cause  of  truth  ? 
Mr.  Froude  does  not  believe  that  it  was  the  cause  of  truth.  I  do 
not  blame  him.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  his  religious  opinions. 
But  Ireland  believed  it  was  the  cause  of  truth,  and  Ireland 
stood  for  it  like  one  man. 

I  speak  of  all  these  things  only  historically.  I  do  not  believe 
in  animosity.  I  am  not  a  believer  in  bad  blood.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve with  Mr.  Froude  that  the  question  of  Ireland's  difficulties 
must  ever  remain  without  a  solution.  I  do  not  give  it  up  in 
despair;  but  this  I  do  say,  that  he  has  no  right  —  nor  has  any 
other  man  —  to  come  before  an  audience  of  America— OF 
AMERICA  !  that  has  never  persecuted  in  the  cause  of  religion  ; 
of  America,  that  respects  the  rights  even  of  the  meanest  subject 
upon  her  imperial  soil  —  and  to  ask  the  American  people  to 
sanction  by  their  verdict  the  robbery  and  the  persecution  of 
which  England  was  guilty. 


THIRD  LECTURE. 


IRELAND    UNDER    CROMWELL. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  —  I  now  approach,  in  answer- 
ing Mr.  Froude,  some  of  the  most  awful  periods  of  our 
history,  and  I  confess  that  I  approach  this  terrible  ground  with 
hesitancy,  and  with  an  extreme  regret  that  Mr.  Froude  should 
have  opened  up  questions  which  oblige  an  Irishman  to  undergo 
the  pain  of  heart  and  anguish  of  spirit  which  a  revision  of 
those  periods  of  our  history  must  occasion.  The  learned 
gentleman  began  his  third  lecture  by  reminding  his  audience 
that  he  had  closed  bis  second  lecture  with  a  reference  to  the 
rise,  progress,  and  collapse  of  a  great  rebellion  which  took 
which  took  place  in  Ireland  in  1641 — that  is  to  say,  somewhat 
more  than  two  hundred  years  ago.  He  made  but  a  passing 
allusion  to  that  great  event  in  our  history,  and  in  that  allusion 
— if  he  has  been  reported  correctly — he  said  simply  that  the 
Irish  rebelled  in  1641  ;  that  was  his  first  statement  that  it  was 
a  rebellion  ;  secondly,  that  this  rebellion 

BEGAN    IN    MASSACRE    AND   ENDED    IN    RUIN. 

Thirdly,  that  for  nine  years  the  Irish  leaders  had  the  destinies 
of  their  country  in  their  hands  ;  and,  fourthly,  that  those  nine 
years  were  years  of  anarchy  and  mutual  slaughter.  Nothing, 
therefore,  can  be  imagined  more  melancholy  than  the  picture 
drawn  by  this  learned  gentleman  of  those  nine  sad  years,  but 


64 

yet  I  will  venture  to  say,  and  hope  to  be  able  to  prove,  that 
each  of  these  four  statements  is  without  historical  foundation. 
My  first  position  is,  that  the  movement  of  1641  was  not  a  re- 
bellion; my  second  is,  that  it  did  not  begin  with  massacre,  al- 
though it  ended  in  ruin;  my  third,  that  the  Irish  leaders  had  not 
the  destinies  of  their  country  in  their  hands  during  those  nine 
years;  and  my  fourth,  that  whether  they  had  or  not,  those  years 
were  not  a  period  of  anarchy  and  mutual  slaughter.  They 
were  but  the  opening  to  a  far  more  terrific  period. 

We  must  discuss  these  questions,  my  friends,  calmly  and 
historically.  We  must  look  at  them  like  antiquarians  prying 
into  the  past,  rather  than  with  the  living,  warm  feelings  of  men 
whose  blood  boils  at  the  remembrance  of  so  much  injustice  and 
oppression.  In  order  to  understand  these  questions  fully  and 
fairly,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  the  historical  events  of  the 
time.  We  find,  then,  that  James  the  First  had  planted  Ulster, 
which  means  that  he  had  confiscated  utterly  and  entirely  six  of 
the  fairest  counties  in  Ireland,  an  entire  provinc  e,  driving  out 
its  Catholic  inhabitants  to  a  man,  and  giving  the  whole  country 
to  Scotch  and  English  settlers  of  the  Protestant  religion,  and 
the  condition  was  added  that  the  new  settlers  should  not  have 

AS    MUCH    AS    AN    IRISH   LABORER 

employed  in  their  fields.  This  man  James  died  in  1625,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son,  the  unfortunate  Charles  I.  England 
had  been  rendered  almost  an  absolute  monarchy  by  Henry  VIII, 
as  we  know.  His  absolute  power  was  still  continued  under  the 
tyrannical  Elizabeth,  and  by  Charles'  own  father,  James  I. 
Charles  came  to  the  throne  with  the  most  exaggerated  ideas  of 
royal  privilege  and  royal  supremacy.  During  the  days  of  his 
father  a  new  spirit  had  grown  up  in  Scotland  and  England. 
The  form  that  Protestantism  took  in  Scotland  was  the  uncom- 
promising and,  - 1  may  say,  cruel  form  of  Calvinism  in  its  most 
repellant  aspect.  The  men  who  rose  in  Scotland  in  defense  of 
their  Presbyterian  religion,  rose  not  against  Catholics,  but 
against  the  Episcopalian  Protestants  of  England.  They  de- 
fended what  they  called  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  They 
fought  bravely,  I  acknowledge,  for  it,  and  they  ended  in  es- 


b.ttsj.j/x    I 


tablishing  it  as  the  religion  of  Scotland.  Now  Charles  I  was 
an  Episcopalian  Protestant  of  the  most  sincere  and  devoted 
kind.  The  Parliament  of  England,  in  the  very  first  years  of 
Charles,  admitted  numbers,  who  were 

STRONGLY   TINGED   WITH   SCOTCH   CALVINISM, 

and  they  at  once  showed  a  refractory  spirit  toward  their  King. 
He  demanded  certain  subsidies  and  they  refused  him.  He  as- 
serted certain  sovereign  rights,  and  they  denied  them.  While 
this  was  going  on  in  England,  from  1630  to  1641,  what  was  the 
condition  of  affairs  in  Ireland  ?  One  fertile  province  of  the 
land  had  been  confiscated  by  James  I.  Charles  I  was  in  need 
of  money  for  his  own  purposes,  and  his  Parliament  refused  to 
grant  any,  and  the  poor,  oppressed  and  down-trodden  Catholics 
of  Ireland  imagined,  naturally  enough,  that  the  King,  being  in 
difficulties,  would  turn  to  them,  and  extend  a  little  countenance 
and  favor,  if  they  proclaimed  their  loyalty  and  stood  by  fra. 
Accordingly,  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  Lord  Falkland,  desiring  t  n- 
cerely  to  aid  his  royal  master,  hinted  to  the  Catholics,  who  1  id 
been  enduring  the  most  terrible  penal  laws,  from  the  days  of 
Elizabeth  and  James  the  First,  that  perhaps,  if  they  sho  ild 
now  petition  the  King,  certain  graces  or  concessions  might  be 
granted  them.  These  concessions  simply  involved  permission 
of  riding  over  English  land,  and  to  worship  God,  according  to 
the  dictates  of  their  own  conciences.  They  sought  for  nothing 
more,  and  nothing  more  was  promised  them.  When  their  pe- 
tition was  laid  before  the  King,  his  royal  Majesty  issued  a 
proclamation,  in  which  he  declared  that  it  was  his  intention, 
and  that  he  had  plighted  his  word,  to  grant  to  the  Catholics  and 
the  people  of  Ireland  certain  concessions  and  indulgencies, 
which  he  named  as  graces.  No  sooner  did  his  Majesty's  inten- 
tion become  known  in  England 

THAN   THE   PURITAN   ELEMENT 

in  the  English  Parliament,  fighting  rebelliously  against  the  King, 
instantly  rose  and  protested  that  there  should  be  no  relaxation 
of  the  penal  laws  against  the  Catholics  of  Ireland.  And, 
Charles,  to  his  eternal  disgrace,  broke  his  word  to  the 

3 


66 

Irish  Catholics,  after  they  had  sent  ,£120,000  in  acknowl- 
edgement of  his  promised  concessions.  More  than  this.  It 
was  suspected  that  Lord  Falkland  was  too  just  a  man  to  be 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  after  a  short  lapse  of  time 
Lord  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Stratford,  was  sent  to  Ireland,  as 
Lord  Lieutenant.  On  arrival,  Wentworth  summoned  a  Parlia- 
ment, and  they  met  in  the  year  1684.  He  told  them  that  the 
King  was  in  difficulties,  how  the  Parliament  in  England  had 
rebelled  against  him,  and  how  he  looked  to  the  Irish  Catholics 
as  loyal.  Perhaps  he  told  them  that,  among  Catholics,  loyalty 
is  not  a  mere  sentiment,  but  an  unshaken  principle,  resting  on 
conscience  and  religion.  And  then  he  assured  them  that 
Charles,  the  King  of  England,  still  intended  to  keep  his  word, 
and  to  grant  them  their  concessions.  Next  came  the  usual  de- 
mand, money,  and  the  Irish  Parliament  granted  six  subsidies  of 
,£50,000  each.  Strafford  wrote  to  the  King,  congratulating 
his  Majesty  that  he  had  got  so  much  money  out  of  the  Irish, 
for  he  said  :  "  You  and  I  remember  that  your  Majesty  expected 
only  ^£30,000,  and  they  have  granted  ^5 0,000."  More  than 
this,  the  Irish  Parliament  voted  the  King  8,000  infantry  and 
1,000  horse  to  fight  his  rebellious  Scottish  subjects  and  ene- 
mies. The  Parliament  .met  the  following  year,  in  1634,  and 
what  do  you  think  of  King  Charles'  fulfillment  of  his  royal 

PROMISES   TO   THE   CATHOLICS   OF    IRELAND  ? 

After  Strafford  got  the  money,  there  was  not  a  word  about 
the  promises  of  his  master  the  King.  He  took  upon  himself, 
and  fixed  on  his  memory,  the  indelible  shame  and  disgrace  of 
breaking  the  word  he  had  plighted,  and  disappointing  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland.  In  1635,  the  real  character  of  this  man 
came  out,  and  what  was  the  measure  of  his  treachery  ?  He  in- 
stituted  a  commission  for  the  express  purpose  of  confiscating, 
in  addition  to  Ulster,  the  whole  province  of  Connaught,  so  as 
not  to  leave  an  Irishman  or  a  Catholic  one  square  inch  of  ground 
in  that  whole  land.  He  called  it  a  Commission  of  Defective 
Titles.  The  members  of  the  commission  were  to  inquire  into 
the  title  of  property,  and  to  find  a  flaw  in  it,  if  they  could,  in 
order  that  the  land  might  be  confiscated  to  the  crown  of  En- 


67 

gland.  Remember  how  much  of  Ireland  had  already  been 
seized,  my  friends.  The  whole  of  Ulster  had  been  confiscated 
by  James  the  First.  The  same  King  had  taken  the  county  of 
Longford  from  the  O'Farrels,  who  had  owned  it  from  time  im- 
memorial. Wexford  from  the  O'Tooles,  and  several  other 
counties,  from  the  Irish  families,  who  were  the  rightful  pro- 
prietors of  the  soil.  And  now,  with  the  whole  of  Ulster  and 
the  better  part  of  Leinster  in  his  hands,  this  Minister  instituted 
a  commission,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  whole  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Connaught,  and  of 

ROOTING   OUT   THE   NATIVE   IRISH 

population.  The  description  of  his  plan  is  given  by  Leland, 
the  historian,  a  man  hostile  to  Ireland's  faith  and  Ireland's 
nationality.  Leland  thus  describes  this  project  : 

It  was  nothing  less,  than  to  set  aside  the  title  of  every  estate  in  every  part 
of  Connaught,  a  project  which  when  proposed  in  the  late  reign,  was  received 
with  horror  and  amazement,  and  which  suited  the  undismayed  and  enter- 
prising genius  of  Lord  Wentworth. 

Stratford's  commission  began  in  Roscommon,  and  went  thence 
into  Sligo;  thence  to  Mayo,  and  from  Mayo  to  Gal  way.  Mark 
how  he  managed  the  tribunal.  To  pass  judgment  upon  the 
validity  of  a  title,  required  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  and  according 
to  their  verdict,  the  title  failed  or  not.  Strafford  began  by  pack- 
ing the  jury — packing  them  !  It  is  the  old  story  over  again. 
The  old  policy  continued  to  our  time,  the  policy  of  a  packed 
and  prejudiced  jury.  He  told  the  jury,  before  the  trial  began, 
that  he  expected  them  to  find  a  verdict  for  the  King,  and,  be- 
tween bribery,  and  overawing,  he  got  juries  to  go  for  him,  un- 
til he  came  into  my  own  county — Galway.  And  to  the  honor 

OF   OLD    GALWAY, 

be  it  said,  that  as  soon  as  the  commission  arrived  in  that  county, 
they  could  not  find  twelve  jurors  there,  base  enough  or  wicked 
enough,  to  confiscate  the  lands  of  their  fellow-subjects.  What 
was  the  result  ?  The  county  Galway  jurors  were  called  to 
Dublin,  before  the  Castle  Chamber.  Every  man  0f  them  was 
fined  ^"4,000,  and  put  in  prison,  to  be  kept  there  Until  the 
fine  was  paid  f  Every  square  inch  of  (heir  property  was  taken 


68 

from  them,  and  the  High  Sheriff  of  Galway,  being  a  man  of 
moderate  means,  and  having  been  fined  j£i,ooo,  died  in  jail, 
because  he  was  not  able  to  pay  the  unjust  imposition. 

Not  content  with  threatening  and  coercing  jurors,  Strafford 
went  to  the  Judges,  and  told  them  that  they  would  get  four 
shillings  for  every  pound  of  property  that  they  confiscated  to 
the  Crown,  and  he  boasted,  publicly,  that  he  had  made  the 
Chief  Baron,  and  the  other  Judges,  attend  to  this  business  as  if 
it  was  their  own  private  concern. 

This  is  the  kind  of  rule  that  the  learned  gentleman  asks 
the  honest  and  upright  citizens  of  this  country,  to  endorse  by 
their  approval,  and  thereby  make  themselves  accomplices  of 
English  robbery. 

In  the  same  way  this  Strafford,  instituted  another  tribunal  in 
Ireland,  which  he  called  the  Court  of  Wards,  and  do  you 
know  what  this  was  ?  It  was  found  that  the  Irish  people,  gen- 
tie  and  simple,  failed  to  become  Protestants.  I  have  not  a 
harsh  word  to  say  to  say  to  any  of  the  Protestants,  but  I  do 
say  that 

EVERY  HIGH-MINDED  PROTESTANT 

in  the  world  must  admire  the  strength  and  fidelity  with  which 
Ireland,  because  of  conscience,  clings  to  her  ancient  faith,  be- 
lieving  it  true. 

This  tribunal  was  instituted  to  cut  off  the  race  of  Catholic 
gentlem«n,  and  bring  in  the  Protestant  religion,  and  to  the  ac- 
tion of  this  Court  of  Wards  is  owing  the  significant  fact  that 
some  of  the  best  and  most  ancient  names  in  Ireland,  the  names 
of  men  whose  fathers  fought  for  the  faith  and  father-land,  be- 
long to  Protestants.  All  those  families  bearing  my  own  name 
which  are  Protestant  can  trace  the  change  of  their  religion  to  the 
Court  of  Wards.  Not  a  drop  of  Protestant  blood  flowed  in  the 
veins  of  the  Earl  of  Clanricarde.-  Before  that  court  was  insti- 
tuted, there  was  nothing  of  Protestantism  about  the  O'Briens  of 
Munster,  the  O'Donnells  and  O'Nialls  of.  Ulster,  but  they  are 
Protestants  to-day.  Let  no  Protestant  or  American  citizen  imag- 
ine that  I  speak  with  disdain  of  his  religion,  but  as  a  historian 
it  is  my  duty  to  point  out  the  means,  which  every  high-min4ed 


69 

man  must  brand  as  nefarious,  by  which  the  aristocracy  of  Ire- 
land were  led  to  change  their  religion. 

But  matters  were  becoming  desperate  between  Charles  and 
his  Parliament,  and  in  1640  the  King  renewed  his  promises  to 
the  Irish  Catholics.  A  Parliament  was  called,  which  granted 
four  subsidies,  8,000  men.  and  1,000  horse,  to  fight  the  Scotch, 
who  had  rebelled.  Strafford  went  home  after  he  had  got  the 
subsidies.  The  Parliament,  which  rebelled,  got  hold  of  him, 
and  in  the  same  year  his  head  was  cut  off,  and  he  is  a  strange 
Irishman  that  can  regret  it.  Mean-time  the  people  of  Scotland 
rose  in  armed  rebellion  against  their  King.  They  marched  into 
England,  and  what  do  you  think  they  made  by  the  movement  ? 
They  secured 

FULL  ENJOYMENT  OF   THEIR  RELIGION, 

which  was  not  Protestant  but  Presbyterian.  They  got  ^300,  ooo, 
and  got  for  several  months  ^850  a  day  to  support  their  army. 
Then  they  retired  into  their  own  country,  after  achieving  the 
purpose  for  which  they  revolted.  Mean-time  the  loyal  Catholics 
of  Ireland  were  being  ground  in  the  very  dust.  What  wonder, 
I  ask  you,  was  it  that  they  counselled  together  and  said,  the 
King  is  afraid  of  the  Parliament,  though  personally  inclined  to 
grant  graces,  which  he  has  plighted  his  royal  word  to  grant  ? 
The  evidence  is  that  if  free  he  would  grant  those  concessions  he 
has  promised.  But  the  King  is  not  free,  said  the  Irish,  for  his 
Parliament  has  rebelled  against  him.  Let  us  rise,  in  the 
King's  name,  and  assert  our  rights.  They  rose  in  1641  — 
like  one  man,  every  Irishman  and  Catholic  in  Ireland  rose.  On 
the  23d  of  October,  1641,  they  all  rose,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Catholic  Lords  of  the  Pale.  I  will  give  you  the  reasons  of 
their  rising,  as  recorded  in  the  "Memoirs  of  Lord  Castlehaven, " 
a  Lord  by  no  means  prejudiced  in  favor  of  Ireland  : 

The  Irish  rose  for  six  reasons  :  first,  because  they  are  generally  looked  down 
to  as  a  conquered  nation,  seldom  or  never  trusted  after  the  manner  of  free- 
born  subjects. 

Here,  dear  friends,  is  the  first  reason  given  by  this  English 
Lord,  that  the  Irish  people  rose  after  the  English  people  treated 
them  contemptuously.  When  will  England  learn  to  treat  her 
subjects  or  friends  with  common  respect.  When  will  that  proud, 


70 

STUBBORN,  ANGLO-SAXON  SPIRIT 

condescend  to  kindness  in  dealing  with  those  around  it.  Much 
as  the  hatred  of  Englishmen  for  Irishmen  may  affect  the  Irish, 
their  contempt  for  us  is  no  less  irritating  than  their  terrible  an- 
tagonism.  The  second  reason  given  by  Castlehaven  is  that  the 
Irish  saw  six  whole  counties  confiscated  by  the  Crown,  and  the 
land  gradually  passing  away  from  the  natives.  The  third  rea- 
son was  that  in  Charles'  time  the  Saxons  laid  claim  also  to  the 
counties  of  Roscommon,  Mayo,  Galway,  and  Cork,  with  some 
other  parts  of  territory  in  Limerick  and  Wicklow,  and  seized  or 
tried  to  seize  it.  The  fourth  reason  was  that,  according  to  the 
English  account  of  the  day,  war  was  declared  against  the  Roman 
Catholics,  a  fact  which,  to  a  people  so  fond  of  their  religion  as 
the  Irish,  was  no  small  matter,  no  small  inducement  to  make 
them  sober  and  quiet,  for  as  a  race  the  Irish  people  are  very 
fond  of  standing  by  their  religious  tenets  and  adhering  to  their 
religious  opinions.  The  fifth  reason  was,  that  they  saw  how  the 
Scots,  by  making  a  show  of  pretended  grievances,  and  taking 
up  arms  against  their  oppressors  in  order  to  procure  the  rights  to 
which  they  were  justly  entitled,  procured  the  rights  which 
they  sought,  secured  the  privileges  and  amenities  due  to  a -na- 
tion anxious  to  assert  its  own  cause  —  its  own  independence. 
They  secured  £500,000  for  their  visit  to  Ireland,  and  the  last 
reason  was,  that  they  saw  such  a  misunderstanding  exist  between 
the  King  and  the  Parliament,  and  they  consequently  believed 
that  the  King  would  grant  them  any  thing  that  they  could  in 
reason  demand,  or  at  least  as  much  as  they  could  expect.  I  ask 
you  were  not  those  sufficient  grounds  for  any  claim  which  the 
Irish  might  have  made  at  that  time  ?  I  appeal  to  the  people  of 
America.  I  speak  to  a  gratuitous  and  generous  people,  who 

KNOW  WHAT  RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY    MEANS. 

I  appeal  here  from  this  platform  to-night  for  a  people  whose 
spirit  was  never  broken,  and  never  will  be.  I  appeal  here  to- 
night for  a  people  not  inferior  to  the  Saxon,  or  to  any  other  race 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  either  in  gifts  of  intellect  or  bodily 
energy.  I  appeal  here  to-night  (and  I  address  myself  to  the 
enlightened  instincts  of  this  great  land)  for  a  people  who  have 
been  down- trodden  and  persecuted  as  our  forefathers  were,  an4 


I  think  it  my  duty,  not  as  a  minister,  but  as  a  historian,  to 
stand  up  here  to-night  and  state  my  reasons  for  so  doing,  believe- 
ing  that  I  have  sufficient  justification  to  stand  up  here  and  do 
so,  and  considering  the  fact  of  the  accumulated  wrongs  that 
have  been  heaped  upon  Ireland,  I  don't  think  I  would  be  doing 
justice  to  myself  or  to  my  country  if  I  didn't  take  advantage  of 
this  opportunity  to  reply  to  the  wrongs  that  have  been  heaped 
upon  my  unfortunate  country.  An  English  Protestant  writer  of 
the  time  to  which  I  refer,  writing  in  HcnveVs  Hibernicon,  says 
that  they  (the  Irish)  had  sundry  grievances  and  grounds  of 
complaint,  in  reference  to  their  estates  and  their  consciences, 
which  they  pretend  to  be  far  greater  than  those  of  the  Scots." 
For  the  Irish  at  the  time  believed  that  even  though  the  Scots 
should  alter  their  religion,  that  was  no  reason  why  they  should 
have  altered  their  own,  for  they  gloried  in  the  fact  that  they  had 
neVer  altered  it.  There  was  another  reason  why  this  state  of 
things  should  not  continue.  Inasmuch  as  there  was  no  cause 
why  they  should  succumb  to 

THE  WEAKNESS  AND    FOLLY  OF  CHARLES, 

for  I  can  call  it  nothing  else,  to  preside  at  the  head  of  the  Irish 
Government.  Sir  George  Borlice  and  Sir  William  Parsons  both 
were  partisans  of  the  Parliament  at  the  same  time  that  they  were 
its  bitterest  enemies,  and  they  thought  that  he  ( the  King ) 
would  be  embarrased  in  his  fight  with  the  Parliament  in  En- 
gland by  the  revolution  in  Ireland,  and  so  the  very  men  who 
should  be  the  guardians  and  preservers  of  the  public  peace  lent 
themselves  to  revolution.  For  instance,  six  months  before  the 
revolution  broke  out,  Charles  gave  them  notice  that  he  received 
intelligence  that  the  lands  were  going  to  waste.  They  took  no 
notice  of  the  King's  advertisements.  The  Irish  Lords  who 
sought  to  remain  faithful  to  the  Crown,  and  live  in  peace,  asked 
to  be  justified  by  the  English  residents  and  patrons  of  the  King 
in  Dublin,  and  it  was  refused  them.  They  were  refused  per- 
mission to  go  into  the  city  and  escape  the  Irish  rebellion,  and 
the  moment  the  Irish  chieftains  came  near  the  settlers  of  the  En- 
glish King,  their  castles  were  declared  forfeited  as  well  as  their 
estates,  and  so  the  Lords  of  Gormanstown  and  Trimbleton  and 


72 

others  were  forced  to  join  hands  with  the  Irish,  and  draw  their 
swords  in  the  glorious  cause  they  so  applauded  and  maintained. 
They  were  forced  to  this.  Moreover  the  Irish  knew  that  their 
friends  and  fellow  countrymen  were  earning  distinction  and 
honor  and  glory  upon  all  the  .battle-fields  of  Europe  —  in  the 
service  of  Spain,  France,  and  Austria,  and  they  held,  not  with- 
out reason,  that  these,  their  countrymen,  would  help  them  in  the 
hour  of  their  need.  Accordingly,  on  the  23d  of  October,  1641, 

THEY  AROSE. 

What  was  the  first  thing  they  did,  according  to  Mr.  Froude? 
The  first  thing  was  to  massacre  all  the  Protestants  they  could 
lay  their  hands  on.  Well,  my  friends,  this,  as  I  will  endeavor 
to  show,  is  not  the  fact.  The  very  first  thing  that  their  leader, 
Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  did,  was  to  issue  a  proclamation,  on  the  very 
day- of  the  rising,  in  which  he  declares  : 

We  rise  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  the  King  ;  we  rise  to  assert  the  power  and 
prerogative  of  the  King;  we  declare  we  do  not  wish  to  make  war  on  the 
King  or  any  one  of  his  subjects  ;  we  declare  moreover,  that  we  do  not  intend 
to  shed  blood  except  in  legitimate  warfare,  and  that  any  man  of  our  tribes 
that  robs,  plunders,  or  sheds  blood  shall  be  severely  punished. 

Did  they  keep  to  the  word  and  the  letter  of  this  declaration  ? 
Most  infallibly.  I  assert,  in  the  name  of  history,  that  there  was 
no  massacre  of  Protestants,  and  this  I  will  prove  from  Protestant 
authority.  We  find  that  on  the  25th — the  27th  of  the  same 
month  in  which  is  given  that  account  of  the  rising  of  the  Irish 
.  people — we  'find  that  according  to  Protestant  accounts  they 
complain,  and  tell  us  that  the  Irish  stripped  them,  stripped 
their  Protestant  fellow-citizens,  took  their  cattle,  took  their 
houses  and  their  property,  but  not  one  single  word  of  complaint 
is  there  about 

ONE  SINGLE  DROP  OF  BLOOD 

being  shed.  And,  my  friends,  if  they  (the  Irish)  took  their 
cattle  and  houses  and  property,  you  must  remember  that  they 
were  only  taking  back  what  was  their-  own.  And  very  shortly 
afterward  the  massacre  began,  but  who  began  it,  and  where? 
The  Irish,  claiming  and  seeking  protection,  brought  their  lives 
with  them  to  Carrickfergus,  and  what  followed  ?  They  entered 


73 

the  town  of  Carrickfergus  and  they  found  a  garrison  of  Scotch 
Puritans.  Now,  in  the  confusion  that  arose,  the  poor  country 
people  all  fled  into  an  obscure  part  of  the  country  near  Carrick- 
fergus, called  Island  Magee.  They  were  there  collected  to  the 
number  of  more  than  three  thousand.  The  very  first  thing  these 
English  Puritans  and  Scotch  garrison  did  was  to  steal  out  of 
Carrickfergus  in  the  night  -  time,  so  as  to  go  in  among  them,  an 
unarmed  people,  and  slaughtered  every  man,  woman  and  child 
they  could  find.  They  left  3,000  human  beings  dead  behind 
them.  Leland,  the  English  Protestant  historian,  says,  "This 
is  the  first  massacre  that  occurred  in  Ireland  on  their  side." 
This  the  first  massacre  !  How  in  the  name  of  Heaven  can  any 
man  be  so  learned  as  Mr.  Froude  and  make  such  untruthful  as- 
sertions as  he  has  advanced?  How  can  he,  in  the  name  of 
history,  assert  that  these  (the  Irish  people)  began  by  massacre- 
ing  38,000  of  his  fellow-countrymen  —  his  fellow- religionists, 
when  we  have  in  the  month  of  December,  four  months  after,  a 
commission  issued  to  the  Dean  Kilmore  and 

SEVEN   OTHER    PROTESTANT  CLERGYMEN 

to  make  sedulous  inquiry  about  the  English  and  Scotch  Protest- 
ants who  were  plundered,  and  not  a  single  inquiry  about  those 
who  were  murdered.  Here  are  the  words  of  Castlehaven  : 

The  Catholics  were  urged  into  rebellion,  and  the  Lords  Justices  were  often 
heard  to  say  that  the  more  in  rebellion,  the  more  lands  would  be  derived  (or 
pilfered)  from  them. 

It  Was  the  old  story ;  it  was  the  old  adage  of  James  the  First, 
4 'Root  out  the  Catholics  ;  root  out  the  Irish  ;  give  Ireland  to 
English  Protestants  and  Puritans,  and  immediately  regenerate 
the  land."  Oh!  from  such  regeneration  of  my  own  or  any 
other  land  or  people,  O  Lord,  deliver  us !  This  rebellion, 
says  Mr.  Froude,  began  in  massacre,  and  it  ended  in  ruin.  It 
ended  in  ruin  the  most  terrible, ^  and  if  it  began  in  massacre, 
you  must,  Mr.  Froude,  acknowledge  that  the  massacre  was  on 
the  part  of  your  countrymen  and  co-religionists.  Then  having 
come  to  this  pass  in  regard  to  this  matter,  it  must  be  understood 
to  be  a  war  between  the  Puritans  and  Protestants  of  Ulster  and 
Other  parts  of  Ireland,  the  former  being  aided  by  constant  re- 


74 

sources — in  the  way  of  armies — who  came  over  to  them  from 
England.  It  was  a  war  that  continued  for  eleven  years.  It 
was  a  war  in  which  the  Irish  chieftains  held  the  destiny  of  the 
nation  in  their  own  hands. 

THEY   WERE    OBLIGED   TO   FIGHT, 

and  fight  like  men,  in  order  to  try  and  achieve  a  better  destiny 
and  a  better  future  for  their  people.  Who  can  say  that  the  Irish 
chieftains  did  not  hold  the  destinies  of  Ireland  in  their  hands 
during  those  nine  years  or  more,  when  they  had  to  fight  against 
hostile  forces,  one  after  the  other,  that  came  successively  against 
them,  inflamed  with  religious  bigotry,  hatred  and  enmity  that 
the  world  has  scarcely  ever  seen  the  like  of?  Then  Mr.  Froude 
adds  that  these  were  years  of  anarchy  and  slaughter.  Let  us 
see  what  evidence  history  has  of  the  facts. 

They  (the  bishops)  were  called  together  in  a  synod  on  the 
1 8th  of  May,  1642.  The  bishops  of  all  Ireland  joined  and  met 
together,  and  they  founded  what  is  called  the  Confederation  of 
Kilkenny.  Among  other  members  selected  they  (the  English 
rulers)  selected  for  a  Supreme  Council  three  archbishops,  two 
bishops,  four  lords  and  fifteen  commoners.  These  men  were  to 
meet  and  to  remain  in  permanent  session,  «  to  watch  over  the 
country,  make  its  laws,  watch  over  the  army,  and,  above  all, 
they  were  to  prevent  cruelty,  robbery  or  murder."  A  regular 
government  was  formed.  They 

ACTUALLY   ESTABLISHED   A   MINT, 

and  coined  money  for  the  Irish  nation,  and  they  established  an 
army  under  Lord  Mount  Cashel,  Lord  Preston,  and  afterward 
under  the  command  of  the  immortal  Owen  Roe  O'Neill. 

It  is  true  that  during  the  first  months  they  gained  some  suc- 
cess. Many  of  the  principal  cities  in  Ireland  opened  their 
gates  to  them.  The  garrisons  were  carefully  saved  from 
slaughter,  and  their  opponents  who  laid  down  their  arms  were 
saved.  Not  a  drop  of  unnecessary  blood  was  shed  by  the  Irish. 
In  reference  to  that  Supreme  Council,  I  defy  any  man  to  say 
(to  prove)  that  there  was  a  single  act  of  that  Supreme  Council 
for  the  purpose  of  promoting  bloodshed  or  slaughter, 


75 

NoW,  after  a  few  months  of  success,  the  armies  of  the  Con- 
federation experienced  some  reverses.  The  English  armies 
came  upon  them,  and  the  command  was  given  to  Sir  Charles 
Coote,  and  I  want  to  read  some  of  that  gentleman's  exploits  for 
you.  Sir  Charles  Coote's  exploits  in  Ireland  are  described  by 
Clarendon  in  these  words  : 

Sir  Charles,  besides  plundering  and  burning  the  town  of  Clontarf  at  that 
time,  did  massacre  sixteen  of  the  town's  people,  men  and  women,  besides 
suckling  infants,  and  in  that  very  same  week  fifty-six  men,  women  and 
children  in  the  village  of  Bullock,  being  frightened  at  w*hat  was  done  at 
Clontarf,  went  to  sea  to  shun  the  fury  of  a  party  of  soldiers  who  came  out 
from  Dublin  under  command  of  Col.  Clifford.  Being  pursued  by  the  sol- 
diers in  boats,gthey  were  overtaken  and  thrown  overboard. 

Sir  William  Borlice  advised  the  Governor,  Sir  Charles  Coote, 
that  the  Irish  were  burning  the  corn,  and  he  gave  men, 
women  and  children  to  the  sword  ;  and  Sir  Anthony  Loftus 
wrote  of  the  same  fact  at  the  time.  Well, 

THIS   PRECIOUS   DOCUMENT 
has  the  following,     This  is  it  : 

It  is  resolved  that  it  is  fit,  (and  mind  this  is  authenticated  by  the  Ear!  o 
Ormond;  that  his  Lordship  doth  endeavor  to  wound,  kill,  slay,  and  destroy, 
by  all  the  ways  and  means  that  he  may,  all  the  said  rebels,  their  adherants 
and  relatives,  and  burn,  spoil,  waste,  consume,  destroy,  and  demolish  all  the 
places,  towns,  and  houses  where  the  rebels  are  or  have  been  relieved  or  har- 
bored, and  all  the  hay  and  corn  there,  and  kill  and  destroy  all  the  men  there 
inhabiting  capable  of  bearing  arms.  Given  at  the  Castle  of  Dublin  on  the 
23d  day  of  February,  1641,  and  signed  by  six  precious  names. 

Listen  to  this  :  "Sir  Anthony  Loftus,  Governor  of  Naas, 
marched  out  with  a  force  of  horse.  He  was  met  on  the  way 
and  joined  by  the  Marquis  of  Ormond,  and  they  both  together 
killed  such  of  the  Irish  as  they  met,  and  did  not  stop  to  inquire 
whether  they  were  rebels  or  not." 

But  the  most  considerable  slaughter  was  where  the  people 
were  driven  to  the  furze,  having  been  alarmed  by  the  whole- 
sale massacre  going  on  around  them.  Now,  Sir  Anthony  having 
discovered  that  the  people  had  taken  refuge  in  the  furze,  set 
fire  to  it  on  all  sides  where  the  people  were,  and  burned  men, 
Women  and  children,  "I  saw,"  said  Castlehaven,  "the  bodies 
amidst  the  furze  while  burning." 

In  the   year    1641-42,  many  thousands   of  poor,    innocent 


people  of  the  county  of  Dublin,  fearing  the  rage  of  the  English 
soldiery,  endeavored  to  escape,  and  as  many  as  endeavored  to 
escape  and  were  arrested 

WERE   BURNED. 

Seven  thousand  of  our  people,  men^  women  and  children,  with- 
out discrimination,  were  destroyed  by  these  demons.  We  find 
also  that  there  was  a  law  made  that  if  any  Irishmen  were  found 
on  board  ships  by  his  Majesty's  cruisers,  they  were  to  be  de- 
stroyed. "The  Earl  of  Warmouth"  (this  is  also  in  Claren- 
don's account)  "  as  often  as  he  met  an  Irish  frigate,  took  all 
the  seamen  prisoners  who  belonged  to  the  nation  of  Ireland, 
and  taking  them  on  deck,  threw  them  overboard  into  the  sea, 
without  distinction  as  to  their  condition,  if  they  were  only  Irish- 
men. In  this  manner  many  poor  men  perished  day  after  day, 
all  of  which  the  King  knew  nothing*-  because  his  Majesty  could  . 
not  complain  of  it  without  being  concerned  in  favor  of  the  re- 
bellious in  Ireland. 

Again,  the  Marquis  of  Ormond  sent  Capt.  Anthony  Willough* 
by,  with  150  men,  to  look  after  the  Irishmen  who  were  in  the 
service  of  the  King  and  actually  fought  for  him.  They  were 
all  taken  by  Capt.  Squarley,  who 

THREW  THE   OFFICERS  AND   SOLDIERS   OVERBOARD, 

although  these  same  soldiers  had  faithfully  served  his  Majesty 
against  the  rebels  during  the  time  of  the  war.  You  will  ask 
me :  Was  that  Captain  punished  for  the  slaughter — the  inhuman 
butchery?  Here  is  the  punishment  he  got.  In  June,  1864,  we 
read,  in  the  journals  of  the  English  House  of  Commons,  that 
Capt.  Squarley  had  given  to  him  by  the  English  House  of 
Commons  £200  in  gold,  and  Capt.  Smith  had  £100  given  him. 
Sir  Richard  Greenville  was  very  much  esteemed  by  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  because  he  plundered  the  Irish  and  found  among 
them  less  property  than  he  expected.  In  a  word  he  committed 
atrocities  which  I  am  ashamed  and  afraid  to  mention.  They 
(the  soldiers)  tossed  the  infants  taken  from  their  dead  mothers' 
bosom  on  their  bayonets  ;  and  it  was  a  common  thing  to  throw 
children  into  the  air  and  for  the  soldier  to  spit  them  with  his 
bayonet,  and  he  loved  and  enjoyed  such  frolic.  They  brought 


77 

the  children  into  the  world  before  their  time  by  a  Caesarian  pro- 
cess, and  brought  the  poor,  helpless  infant  thereby  from  its 
mother's  womb  to  death, 

AN  APPALLING  DEATH, 

while  the  dead  mother  they  immolated  and  sacrificed  in  a 
most  cruel  and  terrible  manner. 

Yes,  such  are  the  facts,  my  friends;  I  am  afraid — I  say  again 
I  am  afraid  to  tell  you  the  hundredth  part  of  the  cruelties 
those  terrible  men,  put  by  them  upon  our  race.  Now,  I  aslc 
you  to  compare  this  with  the  manner  in  which  the  Irish  troops 
behaved.  A  garrison  of  700  English  surrendered,  at  Naas,  and 
the  Irish  commandant  surrendered  them  up,  unharmed  and  un- 
injured^ on  condition  that  under  the  like  circumstances  the  En- 
glish would  do  the  same  thing  with  him.  An  Irish  party 
capitulated  a  few  days  afterward.  The  Governor  of  the  town 
and  all  the  party  were  arrested  and  put  to  death.  Sir  Charles 
Coote,  coming  into  Munster,  slaughtered  every  man,  woman 
and  child  he  met  on  his  march,  and  among  others  was  Philip 
R^an,  whom  he  put  to  death  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 
This  occurs  in  Cart's  life  of  Ormond.  Great  numbers  of  the 
Eiglish,  miraculously  preserved  in  those  days  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  the  Irish,  were  suffered  to  go  into  the  county 
cf  Cork  by  the  courtesy  and  kindness  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Cashel. ' 

In  1649,  Cardinal  Renocini  was  sent  over  by  the  Pope  to 
preside  over  the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Confederation  of  Kil- 
kenny, and  about  the  same  time  news  came  to  Ireland  that 

THE    ILLUSTRIOUS   OWEN   ROE   O'NEILL 

had  landed  in  Ireland  on  the  coast  of  Ulster.  This  man  was  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  officers  in  the  Spanish  service  at  the 
time  when  the  Spanish  infantry  were  acknowledged  to  be  the 
finest  troops  in  the  world.  He  landed  in  Ireland,  organized  an 
army,  drilled  them  and  he  met  Gen.  Monroe  on  the  Black- 
water.  The  battle  raged  through  the  early  hours  of  the  day, 
and  before  evening,  England's  army  was  flying  in  confusion, 
and  her  vast  array  of  soldiers  were  stretched  on  the  field  and 
darkened  the  plains  of  Benburb,  while  the  Irish  soldiery  stood 


78 

triumphant  on  the  field  on  which  it  had  shown  its  valor  and  won 
its  victory.  Partly  through  the  treachery  of  Ormond  and 
Preston,  and  mainly  through  the  agency  of  the  English  lords 
who  were  coquetting  with  the  English  Government,  the  Con- 
federation suffered  the  most  disastrous  defeats,  and  Ireland's 
cause  was  already  broken  and  all  but  lost,  when,  in  the  year 
1649,  Oliver  Cromwell  landed  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Froude  says, 
and  truly,  that  he  di$  not  come  to  make  war  with  rose-water,  but 
with  the  thick,  warm  blood  of  the  Irish  people.  And  Mr.  Froude 
prefaces  the  introduction  of  Oliver  Cromwell  in  Ireland  by  tell- 
ing us  that  the  Lord  Protector  was  a  great  friend  of  Ireland, 
that  he  was  a  liberal-minded  man,  and  intended  to  interfere 
with  no  man's  liberty  of  conscience  ;  and  he  adds  that : 

"IF  CROMWELL'S  POLICY  WERE  CARRIED  OUT 
in  full,  probably  I  would  not  be  here  speaking  to  you  of  our 
difficulties  with  Ireland  to-day.'1  He  adds,  moreover,  that 
Cromwell  had  formed  a  design  for  the  pacicfiation  of  Ireland 
which  would  have  made  future  troubles  there  impossible. 
What  was  this  design  ?  Lord  Macaulay  tells  what  this  design 
was.  Cromwell's  avowed  purpose  was  to  end  all  difficulties  in 
Ireland,  whether  they  arose  from  the  land  question  or  from  the 
religious  question,  by  putting  a  total  and  entire  end  to  the  Irish 
race  by  extirpating  them  off  the  face  of  the  earth."  This  vas 
an  admirable  policy  for  the  pacification  of  Ireland  and  the  cre- 
ation of  peace  ;  for  the  best  way  and  the  simplest  way  to  keep 
any  man  quiet  is  to  cut  his  throat,  The  dead  do  not  speak  ;  he 
dead  do  not  move  ;  the  dead  do  not  trouble  any  one  ;  and 
Cromwell  came  to  destroy  the  Irish  race  and  the  Irish  CathoLc 
faith,  and  so  put  an  end  at  once  to  all  claims  for  land  and  to 
all  disturbances  arising  out  of  religious  persecutions. 

But  I  ask  this  learned  gentleman,  (Mr.  Froude)  does  h« 
imagine  that  the  people  of  America  are  either  so  ignorant  or  sc 
wicked  as  to  accept  the  monstrous  proposition  that  the  man 
who  came  into  Ireland  with  such  a  purpose  as  this  can  be  de- 
clared the  friend  of  the  real  interests  of  the  Irish  people  ? 
Does  he  imagine  that  there  is  no  intelligence  in  America,  that 
there  is  no  manhood  in  America,  that  there  is  no  love  for  free- 


79 

dom,  for  religion  and  for  life  in  America  ?  And  a  man  must 
be  an  enemy  of  freedom,  of  religion  and  of  life  itself  before  he 
can  sympathize  with 

BLOOD-STAINED  OLIVER  CROMWELL. 

Mr.  Froude  says  the  Lord  Protector  did  not  interfere  with  any 
man's  liberty  of  conscience.  "  Interfere  with  no  man's  con- 
science," says  Cromwell ;  "but  if  by  conscience  you  Catholics 
mean  having  priests  and  the  Mass,  you  will  never  have  them  so 
long  as  England  has  power."  Mr.  Froude  says  : 

T  Acknowledge  the  mass  is  abeautifnl  rite,  ancient  and  beautiful,  but  you 
must  remember  that  in  Cromwell's  day  the  mass  meant  the  system  that  was 
shedding  blood  all  over  Europe,  the  system  of  the  church  that  never  knew 
mercy,  and  therefore  he  was  resolved  to  have  none  of  it. 

Ah !  my  friends,  if  the  mass  was  the  symbol  of  slaughter, 
Oliver  Cromwell  would  have  had  more  sympathy  with  the  mass. 
Anl  so  the  historian  seeks  to  justify  cruelty  in  Ireland  against 
the  Catholics,  by  alleging  cruelty  on  the  part  of  Catholics 
agiinst  their  Protestant  fellow-subjects  in  other  lands. 

The  blood  that  was  shed  in  Ireland  at  this  particular  time  was 
shed  exclusively  on  account  of  religion  ;  for  when  in  1 643  Char- 
Is  I  made  a  treaty  or  a  cessation  of  hostilities  with  the  Irish 
tirough  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny,  the  English  Parliament, 
is  soon  as  they  heard  that  the  King  had  ceased  hostilities  for  a 
ime  with  his  Irish  Catholic  subjects,  at  once  came  in  and  said 
that 

THE  WAR  MUST  GO    ON  ; 

we  won't  allow  hostilities  to  cease  ;  we  must  root  out  these  Irish 
papists,  or  else  we  will  incur  danger  to  the  Protestant  religion. 
I  regret  to  say,  my  Protestant  friends,  that  the  men  of  134.3,  the 
members  of  the  Puritan  Houses  of  Parliament  in  England,  have 
fastened  upon  that  form  of  religion  which .  you  profess  the  formal 
argument  and  reason  why  Irish  blood  should  flow  in  torrents  — 
lest  the  Protestant  religion  might  suffer.  In  these  days  of  ours, 
when  we  are  endeavoring  to  put  away  all  sectarian  bigotry,  we 
deplore  the  faults  committed  by  our  fathers  on  both  sides.  Mr. 
Froude  deplores  that  blood  that  was  shed  as  well  as  I  do ;  but, 
my  friends,  it  is  a  historical  question,  arising  upon  historic  facts 


8o 

and  evidence,  and  I  am  bound  to  appeal  to  history  as  well  as 
my  learned  antagonist,  and  to  discriminate  and  put  back  the 
word  which  he  puts  out,  that  toleration  is  the  genius  of  Protest- 
antism. He  asserts  —  and  it  is  an  astounding  assertion  —  in 
this  his  third  lecture,  that  religious  persecution  was  hostile  to  the 
genius  of  Protestantism.  I  wish  that  the  learned  gentleman's 
statement  could  be  proved.  Oh,  how  much  I  desire  that  in 
saying  these  words  he  had  spoken  the  strict  truth  !  No  doubt  he 
believed  what  he  said. 

All  this  I  say  with  regret.  I  am  not  only  a  Catholic,  but  a 
priest,  not  only  a  priest,  but  a,  monk,  not  only  a  monk,  but  a 
Dominican  monk,  and  from  out  of  the  depths  of  my  soul,  I  re- 
pel and  repudiate  the  principle  of  religious  persecution  of  aiy 
kind,  in  any  land. 

OLIVER   CROMWELL, 

the  apostle  of  blessings  to  Ireland,  landed  in  1649,  and  wen*, 
to  work.  He  besieged  Drogheda,  defended  by  Sir  Arthui 
Aston  and  a  brave  garrison.  When  he  made  a  breach  in  th< 
walls,  and  when  the  garrison  found  that  their  position  was  nc 
longer  tenable,  they  asked  in  the  military  language  of  the 
honors  of  war  if  they  were  to  be  murdered.  Cromwell  prom- 
ised to  grant  them  quarter,  if  they  would  lay  down  their 
arms.  They  did  so,  and  the  promise  was  kept,  until  the  town 
was  taken.  When  the  town  was  in  his  hands,  Oliver  Cromwell 
gave  orders  to  his  army  for  the  indiscriminate  massacre  of  the 
garrison,  and  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  that  large  city. 
The  people,  when  they  saw  the  soldiers,  slaying  around  them 
on  every  side,  when  they  saw  the  streets  of  Drogheda  flowing 
with  blood  for  five  days,  flocked,  to  the  number  of  one  thousand 
aged  men,  women,  and  children,  and  took  refuge  in  the  great 
church  of  St.  Peters  in  Drogheda.  Oliver  Cromwell  drew  his 
soldiers  around  that  church,  and  out  of  that  church  he  never 
let  one  of  those  thousand  innocent  persons  escape  alive.  He 
then  proceeded  to  Wexford,  where  a  certain  commander  named 
Stratford  delivered  the  city  over  to  him.  He  massacred  the 
people  there  also.  Three  hundred  of  the  women  of  Wexford, 
with  their  little  children,  gathered  around  the  great  market 


Si 

cross  in  the  great  public  square  of  the  city.  They  thought  in 
their  hearts  that,  cruel  as  he  was,  he  would  respect  the  sign  of 
man's  redemption,  and  spare  those  who  were  collected  around  it. 
How  vain  the  thought !  J  Three  hundred,  poor  defenseless 
women,  screaming  for  mercy 

UNDER   THE   CROSS   OF   JESUS    CHRIST, 

Cromwell  and  his  barbarous  demons  slaughtered  without  per- 
mitting one  to  escape,  until  they  were  ankle  -  deep  in  the  blood 
of  the  women  of  Wexford. 

Cromwell  retired  from  Ireland,  after  he  had  glutted  himself 
with  the  blood  of  the  people,  winding  up  his  work  by  taking 
80,000,  and  some  say  100,000,  of  the  men  of  Ireland,  and 
driving  them  down  to  the  south  ports  of  Munster,  where  he 
shipped  them — 80,000  at  the  lowest  calculation — to  the  sugar 
plantations  of  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  work  as  slaves;  and  in  six 
years  from  that  time,  such  was  the  treatment  that  they  received, 
that  out  of  80,000  there  were  only  twenty  men  left.  He  also 
collected  six  thousand  Irish  boys,  fair,  and  beautiful  stripling 
youths,  put  them  on  board  ships,  and  sent  them  off  also  to  the 
Barbadoes,  there  to  languish  and  die,  before  they  came  to  man- 
hood. Great  God  !  is  this  the  man  that  has  an  apologist  in 
the  learned,  the  frank,  the  courteous  and  gentlemanly  historian, 
who  comes  in  oily  words  to  tell  the  American  people  that 
Cromwell  was  one  of  the  bravest  men  that  ever  lived,  and  one 
of  the  best  friends  to  Ireland  ! 


FORTH    LECTURE. 


T  ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: —  I  have  perceived  in  the 
LJ  public  papers  that  Mr.  Froude  seems  to  be  somewhat  irri- 
tated by  remarks  that  have  been  made  as  to  his  accuracy  as  an 
historian.  Lest  any  word  of  mine  might  hurt,  in  the  least  degree, 
the  susceptibilities  of  an  honorable  man,  I  beg  beforehand  to 
say,  that  nothing  was  farther  from  my  thoughts  than  the  slight- 
est word,  either  of  personality  or  disrespect  for  one  who  has 
won  for  himself  so  high  a  name  as  an  English  historian.  And, 
therefore,  I  sincerely  hope  that  it  is  not  any  word  of  mine,  which 
may  have  fallen  from  me,  even  in  the  heat  of  our  amicable  con- 
troversy, that  can  have  given  the  least  offense  to  that  gentle- 
mSn.  Thus,  as  I  would  expect  from  him,  or  any  other  learned 
gentleman,  the  treatment  which  one  gentleman  is  supposed  to 
show  to  another,  so  do  I  also  wish  to  give  him  the  same  treat- 
ment. 

And  now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  the  matter  in  hand.  Last 
evening  I  had  to  traverse  a  great  portion  of  my  country's 
history,  in  revieving  the  statement  of  the  English  historian,  and 
I  was  obliged  to  leave  almost  untouched  one  portion  of  the 
story,  namely  —  the  period  which  covers  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne.  This  estimable  lady,  of  whom  history  records  the  un- 
womanly vice  of  an  overfondness  for  eating,  came  to  the  En- 
glish throne  on  the  demise  of  William  of  Orange,  in  1702,  and 
pn  that  throne  she  sat  until  1714.  As  I  before  remarked,  it 


83 

was  perhaps  natural  that  the  Irish  people  — the  Catholics  of 
Ireland,,  trodden  into  the  very  dust — that  they  should  have 
expected  some  relief  from  the  daughter]  of  a  man  for  whom 
they  had  shed  their  blood,  and  from  the  grand-daughter  of  the 
other  Stuart  King,  for  whom  they  had  fought  so  bravely  in 
1649.  The  return  that  the  Irish  people  got  from  this  good 
lady  was  quite  of  another  kind  from  what  they  might  have  ex- 
pected. 

QUEEN  ANNE  AND  THE  PROTESTANT  ASCENDANCY. 

Not  content  with  the  atrocious  laws  that  had  been  already 
enacted  against  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  —  not  content  with  the 
flagrant  breach  of  the  articles  of  Limerick,  of  which  her  royal 
brother-in-law,  William,  was  guilty,  no  sooner  does  Annie  come 
to  the  throne,  and  send  the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  Lord-Lieuten- 
ant to  Ireland,  than  the  English  ascendancy,  that  is  to  say, 
the  Protestant  faction  in  Ireland,  got  upon  their  knees  to  the 
Lord-Lieutenant  to  beg  of  him,  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord,  to 
save  them  from  these  desperate  Roman  Catholics.  Great  Lord  ! 
A  people  robbed,  persecuted,  and  slain  until  only  a  miserable 
remnant  of  them  were  left,  without  a  voice  in  the  nation's 
councils  ;  without  a  vote  even  at  the  humblest  board  that  sat  to 
transact  the  meanest  parochial  business  ;  these  were  the  men 
against  whom  the  strong  Protestant  ascendancy  of  Ireland 
made  their  complaint  in  1703.  And  so  well  were  these  com- 
plaints heard,  that  we  find  edict  after  edict  going  out,  de- 
claring that  no  Papist  shall  be  able  to  inherit  or  possess  land, 
or  to  buy  land,  or  have  it  even  under  a  lease  ;  declaring  that  if 
a  Catholic  child  wished  to  become  a  Protestant,  that  that  child 
became  the  owner  and  master  of  his  father's  estate,  and  his 
father  remained  only  his  pensioner  or  tenant  for  life,  upon  the 
bounty  of  his  own  apostate  son  ;  declaring  that  a  child,  no 
matter  how  young- — even  an  infant— conformed  and  become 
Protestant,  that  moment,  that  child  was  to  be  removed  from  the 
guardianship  and  custody  of  the  father,  and  was  to  be'  handed 
over  to  some  Protestant  relation.  Every  enactment  that  the 
misguided  ingenuity  of  the  tyranical  mind  of  man  could 
suggest  was  adopted,  and  put  in  force.  " One  would  be  in- 


clined  ,"  says  Mr.  Mitchell,  "to  suppose  that  Papacy  had  been 
already   sufficiently  discouraged,  seeing  that  the  bishops  and 
clergy  had  been  banished,  that  the  Catholics  were  excluded  by 
law  from  all  honorable  employments,    carefully  disarmed  and 
plundered  of  almost  every  acre  of  their  ancient  inheritance.  " 
But  enough  had  not  yet  been  done  to  make  the  Protestant  in- 
terest  feel  secure,  consequentely  these  laws  came  in,  and  clauses 
were  added  by  this  good  Queen  Anne,  declaring  that  no  Papist 
or  Catholic  could  live  in  a  walled  town,   especially  in  the  towns 
Limerick  and  Galway.     If  any  Catholic  came,  and  even  entered 
into  the  suburbs  of  the  town,  they  were  obliged  to  remain  out- 
side of  the  town,  as  if  they  were  lepers — outside  of  the  towns, 
where   they  would  contaminate  and   degrade  their  sleek  and 
pampered  Protestant  fellow- citizens  in  the  land.     The  persecu- 
tion went   on.     In  1711   we  found  them  enacting  new  laws, 
and  later,  on  the  very  last  day  of  Queen  Anne's  reign,  thus  we 
find  them  enacting   their  laws,  hounding  on  their   magistrates 
and  the  police  of  the  country,  and  the  informers  of  the  country, 
offering  them  bribes  and   premiums  to  execute  these  atrocious 
laws,  and  to  hunt  the  Catholic  people  and  the  Catholic  priests 
of  Ireland,  as   if  they  were   fierce,  untameable  wolves.     And, 
my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  justifies  this    on  two  grounds.     Not  a 
single  word  of  compassion  has  he  for  the  people  who  were  thus 
treated  ;  not  a  single  word  has  he  of  manly  protest   against  the 
shedding  of  that  people's  blood  by  unjust  persecution,  as  well 
as  the  robbery  by  legal   enactment.     But,  he  says,   there  were 
two  reasons  which,  in  his  mind,  seemed  to  justify  the  atrocious 
action   of  the   English  government.     The    first  of  these  was, 
"that,    after  all,    these  laws  were   only  retaliation  upon   the 
Catholics  of  Ireland   for    the  dreadful  persecutions  that  were 
suffered  by  the  Huguenots  or  Protestants  of  France, "  and  he 
says  that  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  only  following  the  ex- 
ample of  King  Louis   XIV,  who  revoked  the   edict  of  Nantes. 
Let  me  explain  this  to  you. 

THE   EDICT   OF  NANTES 

The  edict  of  Nantes  was  a  law,  that    gave  religious    liberty 
to  the  French  Protestants,  as  well  as   the  Catholics.     It  was  a 


law  founded  injustice.  It  was  a  law  founded  on  the  sacred 
rights  that  belong  to  man,  and  this  law  was  revoked.  Conse- 
quently, the  Protestants  of  France  were  laid  open  to  persecution. 
But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  French  Protestants  and 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland.  The  French  Protestants  had  nevet 
their  liberty  guaranteed  to  them  by  treaty  ;  the  Irish  Catholics 
had  their  liberties  guaranteed  by  the  treaty  of  Limerick  — the 
treaty  they  won  by  their  own  brave  hands  and  swords.  The 
Edict  of  Nantes  was  revoked,  but  that  revocation  was  no  breach 
of  any  royal  word  pledged  to  them.  The  treaty  of  Limerick 
was  broken  with  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  in  the  breach  of 
it  the  King  of  England,  the  Parliament  of  England,  the  aristoc- 
racy and  the  people  of  England,  as  well  as  the  miserable 
Irish  Protestant  faction  at  home,  became  treacherous  before  history 
and  the  world.  Here  are  the  words  of  the  celebrated  Edmund 
Burke,  on  the  subject  of  the  revocationof  this  edict :  « *  this  act  of  in- 
justice,"  says  the  great  Irish  statesman,  "which  let  loose  on  that 
monarch,  Louis  XIV,  such  a  torrent  of  invective  and  reproach, 
and  which  threw  so  dark  a  cloud  over  the  splendor  of  that  most 
illustrious  reign,  falls  far  short  of  the  case  of  Ireland."  Re* 
member,  he  is  an  Englise  statesman,  though  of  Irish  birth,  and 
a  Protestant,  who  speaks.  '•'  The  privileges  which-  the  Protes- 
tants of  France  enjoyed,  antecedent  to  this  revocation,  were 
far  greater  than  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland  ever  aspired  to 
under  the  Protestant  establishment.  The  number  of  their 
sufferers,  if  considered  absolutely,  is  not  half  of  ours  ;  and  if 
considered  relatively  to  the  body  of  the  community,  it  is  per- 
haps not  a  twentieth  part.  Then  the  penalties  and  incapacities 
which  grew  from  that  revocation  are  not  so  grievous  in  their 
nature*  or  so  certain  in  their  execution,  or  so  ruinous,  by  a  great 
deal,  to  the  people's  prosperity  in  that  State,  as  those  which 
were  established  for  a  perpetual  law  in  the  unhappy  country  of 
Ireland."  In  fact,  what  did  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  do  ?  It  condemned  those  who  relapsed  into  the  Protes- 
tant faith,  without  having  renounced  it;  it  condemned  them, 
not  indeed  to  the  confiscation  of  their  goods-*-there  was  no 
confiscation,  except  in  cases  of  relapse,  and  in  cases  of  quitting 
the  country.  There  was  nothing  at  all  of  that  complicated 


86 

machinery  which  we  have  described  in  referring  to  Ireland's 
persecutions;  there  was  nothing  said  of  beggaring  one  portion 
of  the  population,  and  giving  its  spoils  to  the  other  part  ; 
while,  side  by  side  with  this,  we  find  the  Irish  people  ruined, 
beggard,  were  persecuted  and  hunted  to  death ;  and  the  English 
historian  comes  and  says  :  "Oh!  we  were  only  serving  you  as 
your  people,  and  your  own  fellow-religionists  in  France,  were 
serving  us."  The  other  reason  which  he  gave  to  justify  these 
persecutions  was,  that  "  the  Irish  Catholics  were  in  favor  of 
the  Pretender  " — that  is  to  say  of  the  son  of  James  II — "  and 
consequently  were  hostile  to  the  Government."  Now,  to  that 
statement  I  can  give,  I  think,  a  most  emphatic  denial 

THE  IRISH  PEOPLE  AND  THE  STUARTS. 

The  Irish  Catholics  had  quite  enough  of  the  Stuarts  ;  they 
had  shed  quite  enough  of  their  blood  for  that  treacherous  and 
shameless  race  ;  they  had  no  interest  whatever  in  the  succes- 
sion, nor  cared  they  one  iota  whether  the  Elector  of  Hanover, 
or  the  son  of  James  Stuart  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  England. 
For  well  they  knew,  whether  it  was  a  Hanoverian  or  a  Stuart 
that  ruled  in  England,  the  faction  at  home,  in  Ireland,  and  the 
prejudices  of  the  English  people  would  make  him,  whoever  he 
was,  a  tyrant  over  them  and  over  their  nation.  And  thus  the 
persecution  went  on,  and  law  after  law  was  passed  to  make 
perfect  the  beggary  and  the  ruin  of  the  Irish  people  ;  until,  at 
length,  Ireland  was  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  misery  that  the 
very  name  of  an  Irishman  was  a  reproach.  At  length,  a  small 
number  of  the  glorious  race  had  the  weakness  to  change  their 
faith  and  to  deny  the  religion  of  their  fathers.  The  name  of 
an  Irishman  was  a  reproach. 

DEAN  SWIFT  ON  THE  IRISH. 

My  friends,  Dean  Swift  was  born  in  Ireland  ;  Dean  Swift  is 
looked  upon  as  a  patriotic  Irishman,  yet  Dean  Swift  said  :  "I 
do  not  consider  myself  an  Irishman,  because  I  happened  to  be 
born  in  Ireland,  any  more  than  an  Englishman,  chancing  to  be 
born  in  Calcutta,  would  consider  himself  a  Hindoo."  Of  the 
degradation  of  the  Irish,  and  their  utter  prostration,  he  went  on 
so  far  as  to  say,  « <  he  would  not  think  of  taking  them  into  ac- 


count,  on  any  matter  of  importance,  any  more  than  he  would  of 
consulting  the  swine."  Lord  Macauley  gloats  over  the  state  of 
the  Catholics  in  Ireland  then,  and  Mr.  Froude  views,  perhaps 
not  without  some  complacency,  their  misery.  Lord  Macauley 
calls  them  Pariahs,  and  says  that  they  had  no  existence,  that 
they  had  no  liberty,  even  to  breathe  in  the  land,  and  that  land 
their  own  ;  and  we  find,  through  'Swift,  at  this  very  time,  the 
Lord  Chancellor  rising  in  an  English  court  —  an  Irish  court — 
laying  down  the  law  quite  coolly  and  calmly,  and  saying  that, 
"in  the  eye  of  the  law,  no  Catholic  was  in  existence."  Chief 
Justice  Robison  made  a  similar  declaration.  Here  are  the 
words  of  his  lordship,  the  Chief  -  Justice  :  " It  appears,"  he  says, 
1 « that  the  law  does  not  suppose  any  such  person  to  exist  as  an 
Irish  Roman  Catholic."  And  yet,  at  that  very  time,  we  find 
Irishmen  proclaiming  their  loyalty,  and  saying:  "Look  at  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  how  loyal  they  are."  Mr.  Froude  says 
that  they  favored  the  Pretender  at  the  very  time  when  the  Gov- 
ernment itself  was  attributing  the  quietude  of  the  people  in  Ire- 
land, not  to  their  prostration,  not  to  their  ruin,  as  was  the  real 
case,  but  to  their  devoted  loyalty  to  the  crown  of  England. 
Well  did  the  brave  Irish  gentleman  Mitchell  reject  it.  "They 
were,"  he  says,  "as  degraded  as  England  could  make  them  ; 
but  there  was  another  degradation  that  could  only  come  through 
themselves,  and  that  they  were  not  guilty  of,  and  that  would  be 
the  degradation  of  loyalty."  Now,  my  friends,  we  have,  at 
this  very  time,  an  Irishman  of  the  name  of  Phelim  O'Neill, 
one  of  the  glorious  old  line  of  Tyrone  ;  one  in  whose  veins 
the  blood  of  the  great  and  the  heroic  Red  Hugh,  who  purpled 
the  Blackwater,  who  struck  the  Saxon  at  the  Yellow  Ford,  and 
purpled  the  stream  of  the  Blackwater  with  his  blood  ;  one 
in  whose  blood  flowed  the  perhaps  still  nobler  blood  of  the  im- 
mortal Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  the  glorious  victor  of  Benburb. 
And  this  good  Phelim  O'Neill  changed  his  religion,  and  be- 
came a  Protestant.  But  it  seemed  to  him  a  strange  and  un- 
natural thing  that  a  man  of  the  name  of  O'Neill  should  be  a 
Protestant,  so  he  changed  his  name  from  Phelim  O'Neill,  and 
called  himself  Felix  Neale.  There  has  been  a  good  deal  said 
lately  about  the  pronunciation  of  proper  names  and  what  they 


88 

rhyme  with;  this  man  made  his  name  rhyme  with  eel  —  the 
slippery  eel.  Now,  on  this  change  of  the  gentleman's  name 
and  religion,  an  old  parish  priest  wrote  some  Latin  verses, 
which  were  translated  by  Clarence  Mangin.  I  will  read  them, 
just  to  let  you  know  how  things  were  in  Ireland  at  that  time. 

"  All  things  has  Felix  changed  ;  he  changed  his  name, 
Yet  in  himself  he  is  no  more  the  same; 
Scorning  to  spend  his  days  where  he  was  reared, 
To  drag  out  life  among  the  vulgar  herd, 
And  trudge  his  way  through  bogs,  in  tracks  and  brogues. 
He  changed  his  creed,  and  joined_*the  Saxon  rogues; 
By  whom-  his  sires  were  robbed,  and  laid  aside 
The  arms  they  bore  for  centuries  with  pride  ; 
The  ship,  the  salmon,  and  the  famed  Red -hand, 
And  blushed  when  called  O'Neill  in  his  own  land. 
Poor  paltry  skulker  from  thy  noble  race, 
In  Felix,  Felix,  weep  for  thy  disgrace." 

THE  PROTESTANT  ASCENDANCY* 

But,  my  friends,  the  English  ascendancy,  or  the  Protestant 
ascendancy  in  Ireland,  if  you  will,  seeing  now  that  they  had 
got  every  penal  law  that  they  could  ask  for  ;  seeing  that  the 
only  thing  that  remained  for  them  was  utterly  to  exterminate 
the  Irish  race — and. this  they  had  nearly  accomplished,  for  they 
had  driven  them  into  the  wilds  and  waters  of  Connaught,  and 
they  would  have  killed  them  all,  only  that  the  work  was  too 
large,  and  that  there  was  a  certain  something  in  the  old  blood, 
in  the  old  race,  that  still  terrified  them  when  they  approached 
it ;  and  they  had  so  far  subdued  the  Catholics,  that  they 
thought,  now,  at  least,  their  hands  were  free,  and  nothing  re- 
mained  for  them  but  to  make  Ireland,  as  Mr.  Froude  says,  a 
garden.  They  were  to  have  every  indulgence  and  every  privi- 
lege. Accordingly,  they  set  to  work.  They  had  their  own 
Parliament.  No  Catholic  could  come  near  them,  or  come  into 
their  towns — they  were  forbidden  to  present  themselves  at  all. 
They  were  greatly  surprised  to  find  that  the  Catholics  were 
crushed  into  the  very  earth ;  England  began  to  regard  the  very 
Cromwellians  themselves  with  fear  and  hatred.  What !  They, 
the  sons  of  the  Puritans !  They,  the  brave  men  that  had 
slaughtered  so  many  of  the  Irish  and  of  the  Catholic  religion, 


89 

are  they  to  be  treated  unjustly?     Was  their  trade,  or  their  com- 
merce, or  their  Parliament  to  be  interferred  with  ? 

MR.  FROUDE   FINDS   TEARS   AT  LAST. 

Ah !  now,  indeed,  Mr.  Froude  finds  tears,  and  weeps  them 
over  the  injustice  and  over  the  folly  of  England,  because  En- 
gland interfered  with  the  commerce,  and  with  the  trade  of  the 
Protestant  ascendancy  in  Ireland.  They  made  a  law  —  these 
Protestant  tradesmen  were  first-class  woolen  weavers,  and,  at 
last,  the  cloth  they  made  became  the  very  best,  and  their  cloth 
took  the  very  best  prices  in  all  the  markets  of  Europe,  because 
the  wool  of  the  Irish  sheep  was  so  fine.  The  English  Parlia- 
ment made  a  law  that  the  Irish  traders  were  not  to  sell  any 
more  cloth  ;  they  were  not  to  go  into  any  more  markets  to  rival 
their  English  fellow -merchants.  They  were  to  stay  at  home  ; 
they  had  the  island,  and  they  might  make  the  most  of  it ;  but 
no  freedom  in  trade,  nothing  that  would  enrich  Ireland  —  that 
the  English  Parliament  denied. 

Now,  Mr.  Froude  speaks  of  this,  in  his  lecture,  to  this  ex- 
tent :  « f  That  England,  at  that  time,  happened  to  be  under  the 
dominion  of  a  paltry  lot  of  selfish  money  -  jobbers  and  mer- 
chants." Mere  accident,  according  to  him  —  an  accident  which, 
he  confesses,  so  discontented  the  Orange  faction  in  Ireland  that 
many  hundreds  of  them  emigated,  and  came  over  to  America 
to  settle  in  the  New  England  States.  There,  as  he  asserts, 
they  carried  their  hatred  with  them,  and  that  feeling  was  one 
to  break  up  the  British  Empire.  I  have  another  theory  on  this 
great  question.  I  hold  that  it  was  no  accident  of  the  hour  at 
all,  that  made  England  place  her  restrictive  laws  on  the  Irish 
commerce  and  trade.  I  hold  that  it  was  the  settled  policy  of 
England.  These  men  who  were  now  in  the  ascendancy  in  Ire- 
land imagined  that,  because  they  had  ruined  and  beggared  the 
ancient  race,  and  the  men  of  the  ancient  faith,  therefore  they 
were  friends,  and  they  would  be  regarded  as  friends  by  En- 
gland. I  hold  it  was  at  that  time,  and,  in  a  great  measure,  is 
to  -  day,  the  fixed  policy  of  England  to  keep  Ireland  poor,  to 
keep  Ireland  down,  to  be  hostile  to  Ireland,  no  matter  who 


9o 

lives  in  it,  whether  he  be  Catholic  or  Protestant,  whether  he  be 
Norman,  Cromwellian  or  Celt. 

THE  IRISH  "JAILORS." 

"Your  fathers,"  says  Curran,  speaking  to  the  men  of  his  time 
a  hundred  years  afterward,  "your  ancestors  thought  themselves 
the  oppressors  of  their  fellow-subjects,  but  they  were  only  their 
jailors  ;  and  the  justice  of  Providence  would  have  been  frustrat- 
ed if  their  own  slavery  had  not  been  the  punishment  for  their 
baseness  and  their  folly."  That  slavery  came,  and  it  fell  on 
commerce.  The  Protestant  inhabitants  of  Ireland, the  Protes- 
tant rivals  of  Ireland,  the  planters  and  the  sons  of  the  planters, 
were  beggared  by  the  hostile  legislation  of  England,  simply  be- 
cause they  were  now  in  Ireland  and  had  an  interest  in  the  Irish 
soil  and  the  welfare  of  the  country.  The  inimitable  Swift, 
speaking  on  this  subject,  makes  use  of  the  following  quaint  fable 
of  Ovid.  He  says  :  "The  fable  which  Ovid  relates  of  Arachne 
and  Pallas  is  to  this  purpose.  The  goddess  had  heard  of  a 
certain  Arachne,  a  virgin  renowned  for  spinning  and  weaving. 
They  both  met  upon  a  trial  of  skill,  and  Pallas,  the  goddess, 
rinding  .herself  almost  equalled  in  her  own  art,  stung  to  rage, 
after  knocking  her  rival  down,  turned  her  into  a  spider  and  en- 
joined her  continually  to  weave  forever  out  of  her  own  bowels 
and  in  a  very  narrow  compass.  I  confess,"  the  Dean  goes  on, 
« '  that  from  a  boy  I  always  pitied  poor  Arachne,  and  never  could 
heartily  love  the  goddess  on  account  of  so  cruel  and  unjust  a 
sentence,  which,  however,  is  fully  executed  upon  us  by  England, 
with  the  further  addition  that  while  she  required  the  greatest 
part  of  our  bowels,  they  are  extorted  without  leaving  us  'the 
liberty  of  spinning  or  weaving."  Thus  he  writes  of  this  strange 
piece  of  legislation,  which  Mr.  Froude  acknowledges  as  unjust. 
The  Irish  wool  was  famous  and  the  English  were  outbid  for  it 
by  the  French  manufacturers.  The  French  were  willing  to  give 
three  shillings  a  pound  for  the  wool,  and  the  English  passed  a 
law  that  the  Irish  people  could  not  sell  their  wool  any-where  but 
in  England,  so  they  fixed  their  price  on  it  and  they  took  the 
wool,  made  cloth,  and,  as  the  Dean  says,  poor  Arachne,  Ireland 
had  to  give  her  bowels  without  the  pleasure  of  spinning  or  weav- 


91 

ing.  Then  the  Dean  goes  on  to  say  :  "The  Scriptures  tell  us 
that  opression  makes  the  wise  man  mad,  therefore  the  reason 
that  some  men  in  Ireland  are  not  mad  is  because  they  are  not 
wise  men.  However,  it  were  to  be  wished  that  oppression  would 
in  time  teach  a  little  wisdom  to  fools."  Well,  we  call  Dean 
Swift  a  patriot.  How  little  did  he  think,  for  as  great  a  man  as 
he  was,  that  the  oppression  compared  with  which  the  restriction 
upon  the  wool  was  nothing,  the  oppression  that  beggared  and 
ruined  a  whole  people,  that  drove  them  from  their  land,  that 
drove  them  from  every  pleasure  in  life,  that  drove  them  from 
their  country,  that  maddened  them  to  desperation,  and  all  be- 
cause they  had  Irish  names,  Irish  blood,  and  because  they  would 
not  give  up  the  faith  which  their  conscience  told  them  was  true . 

THE  PETITION  OF  1775. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude,  in  his  lecture,  comes  at 
once  to  consider  the  consequences  of  that  Protestant  emigration 
from  Ireland,  and  he  says  "the  manufacturers  of  Ireland  and 
the  workmen  were  discontented,  and  they  shipped  off  and  came 
to  America  ;"  and  then  he  begins  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of 
America  upon  the  side  of  the  Protestant  men  who  came  over 
from  Ireland.  If  he  stopped  here,  I  would  not  have  a  word 
to  say  to  the  learned  historian.  When  an  Englishman  claims 
the  sympathy  of  this,  or  of  any  other  land,  for  men  of  his  peo- 
ple and  of  his  religion,  if  they  are  deserving  of  that  sympathy, 
I,  an  Irishman,  am  always  redy,  and  the  first  to  grant  it  to  them, 
with  all  my  heart.  And,  therefore,  I  do  not  find  the  slightest 
fault  with  this  learned  Englishman  when  he  challenges  the 
sympathies  of  America  for  the  Orangemen  of  Ireland,  and  the 
Protestants  who  came  to  this  country.  If  those  men  were  de- 
serving of  America's  sympathy,  why  not  let  them  have  it?  But 
Mr.  Froude  went  on  to  say  that,  whilst  he  claimed  sympathy 
for  the  Protestant  emigrants  from  Ireland  as  staunch  Republi- 
cans and  lovers  of  American  liberty;  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  clamoring  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  — 
telling  King  George  III  that  they  would  be  only  too  happy  to 
go  out  at  his  command,  and  to  shoot  the  American  people  in 
his  cause,  Was  that  statement  true,  or  not?  My  friends,  the. 


learned  gentleman  quoted  a  petition  that  was  presented  to  Sir 
John  Blackier  in  1775,  the  very  year  America  began  to  assert 
her  independence.  In  that  petition  he  states  that  Lord  Fingal 
and  several  other  Catholic  noblemen  of  Ireland  speak  in  the 
name  of  the  Irish  people,  and  pronounce  the  American  Revolu- 
tion an  unnatural  rebellion,  and  manifesting  their  desire  to  go 
out  and  devote  themselves,  for  the  best  of  kings,  to  the  suppres- 
sion of  American  liberty.  First  of  all,  I  ask  when,  at  any 
time  in  our  history,  was  Lord  Fingal,  or  Lord  Hope,  or  Lord 
Kenmore,  or  any  one  of  these  Catholic  Lords  of  the  Pale,  as 
they  were  called  —  when,  at  any  time  in  our  history,  has  any 
one  of  them  .been  authorized  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Irish 
people  ?  Their  presence  in  Ireland,  although  they  have  kept 
the  Catholic  faith ;  their  presence  in  Ireland  in  every  struggle, 
in  every  national  manifestation,  has  been  a  cross,  and  a  hinder- 
ance,  and  a  stumbling-block  to  the  Irish  nation,  and  that  peo- 
ple know  it  well.  But,  not  doubting  Mr.  Froude's  word  at  all, 
and  only  anxious  to  satisfy  myself  by  historic  research,  1  have 
looked  for  this  petition.  I  have  found,  indeed,  a  petition  in 
"Curren's  Collection," — a  petition  signed  by  Lord  Fingal  and 
by  a  number  of  other  Catholic  Irish  noblemen,  addressed  to  his 
majesty,  the  King,  in  which  they  protest  their  loyalty  in  terms 
of  the  most  slavish  and  servile  adulation  ;  but  in  that  petition  I 
have  not  been  able  to  discover  one  single  word  about  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution,  not  a  single  word  of  address  to  the  King  ex- 
pressing a  desire  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  America.  Not  one 
word.  I  have  sought,  and  my  friends  have  sought,  in  the  rec- 
ords, and  in  every  document  that  was  at  our  hands,  for  this 
petition  of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks,  and  I  could  not  find  it. 
There  must  be  a  mistake  somewhere  or  other.  It  is  strange  that 
a  petition  of  so  much  importance  would  not  be  published  amongst 
the  documents  of  the  time.  We  know  that  Sir  John  Blackier 
was  Secretary  to  the  Lord  -  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  ;  naturally 
enough,  the  petition  would  go  to  him,  not  to  rest  with  him,  but 
to  be  presented  to  the  King.  And  yet,  I  think  I  may  state  with 
certainty  that  the  only  petition  that  was  presented  to  the  King 
in  1775  was  the  one  of  which  I  speak,  and  in  which  there  was 
not  a  single  word  about  America  or  about  the  American  Revolu- 


.     93 

tion.  But  the  learned  historian's  resources  are  so  much  more 
ample  than  mine ;  his  resources  of  time,  of  preparation,  and  of 
talent;  his  resources  in  the  varied  springs  of  information,  amongst 
which  he  has  lived  and  passed  his  years,  that  no  doubt  he  will 
be  able  to  explain,  this.  In  any  case,  the  petition  of  which  he 
spoke  must  have  passed  through  Sir  John  Blackier's  hands  — 
for  he  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Lord -Lieutenant — then  passed 
through  him  to  the  Lord  -  Lieutenant,  to  be  inspected  by  him  ; 
then  to  the  Prime  Minister  of  England,  and  then  to  the  King. 
We  have  an  old  proverb  in  Ireland  which  indicates  the  way  they 
manage  these  things  at  home  :  « <  To  speak  to  the  maid,  to  speak 
to  the  minister,  to  speak  to  the  master." 

THE   SYMPATHIES   OF   IRELAND. 

In  that  glorious  year  of  1775,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were 
down  in  the  dust;  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  had  no  voice  —  not 
as  much  as  a  vote  for  a  Parish-beadle,  much  less  for  a  member 
of  Parliament.  And  does  Mr.  Froude  mean  to  tell  the  Ameri- 
can people  that  these  unfortunate  wretches  would  not  have 
welcomed  the  cry  that  came  from  across  the  Atlantic  ;  the  cry 
of  a  people  who  rose  like  a  giant,  although,  as  yet,  only  an  in- 
fant in  age,  to  proclaim  the  eternal  liberty  of  man  and  of  na- 
tions ;  to  proclaim  that  no  people  on  the  earth  should  be  taxed 
without  representation,  and  to  give  the  first  blow,  right  across 
the  face  of  English  tyranny,  which  that  old  tyrant  had  received 
for  many  years  ;  a  blow  before  which  England  reeled,  and 
which  brought  her  to  her  knees? 

Does  he  mean  to  tell  you  or  me,  citizens  of  America,  that  such 
an  event  as  this  would  be  distasteful  to  the  poor  Irish  Catholics 
of  Ireland  ?  It  is  true  that  they  had  crushed  them  as  far  as  they 
could,  but  they  had  not  taken  the  manhood  out  of  them.  Now, 
here  are  the  proofs  of  this :  Lord  Howe,  the  English  General, 
in  that  very  year  of  1775,  writes  home  to  his  Government  in 
England,  from  America,  and  says:  "Send  me  but  German 
troops."  You  know  England  was  in  the  habit  of  employing 
Hessians.  I  don't  say  this  with  the  slightest  feelings  of  disre- 
spect ;  I  have  .the  deepest  respect  for  the  great  German  element 
in  this  country,  but  in  those  times,  certain  it  is,  and  it  is  an 


94 

historic  fact,  that  the  troops  of  Hesse  Castle,  Hesse  Darmstadt, 
and  other  of  the  smaller  German  States,  were  hired  out  by  their 
Princes  to  whoever  took  them,  and  engaged  them  to  fight  their 
battles.  "  Send  me  out  German  troops,"  he  says,  "for  I  have 
a  great  dislike  for  the  Catholic  soldiers,  as  they  are  not  at  all 
to  be  depended  upon."t  They  sent  out  four  thousand  troops 
from  Ireland  ;  but  listen  to  this  :  Arthur  Lee,  an  agent  of  the , 
American  Government  in  Europe,  writes  home  to  his  Govern- 
ment in  1775,  and  he  says  :  "That  the  resources  of  our  enemy, 
that  is  to  say  of  England,  are  almost  so  annihilated  in  Ger- 
many, that  their  last  resort  is  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ire- 
land. We  have  already  experienced  their  unwillingness  to  go 
over  to  America.  Most  of  the  regiments  resisted,  there  in  Ire- 
land ;  last  year  they  were  obliged  to  ship  them  off  tied  and 
bound"  When  the  Irish  Catholic  soldiers  heard  that  they 
were  to  go  to  America  to  cut  the  throats  of  the  American 
people,  and  to  scalp  them,  they  swore  they  never  would  do  it ; . 
and  they  had  to  take  them,  tie  them,  and  carry  them  on  board 
the  ships.  But  Arthur  Lee  goes  on  to  say,  "And,  most  cer- 
tainly, they  will  desert  more  than  any  other  troops  whatsoever." 
Louden,  an  historian  of  the  time,  tells  us  that  -the  war  against 
America  was  not  very  popular,  even  in  England.  "But  in 
Ireland,"  he  says,  "the  people  assumed  the  cause  of  America 
through  sympathy."  Let  us  leave  Ireland,  and  go  to  America. 
Let  us  see  how  the  great  men  who  are  building  up  the  mag- 
nificent edifice  of  their  country's  freedom?  laying  the  foundation 
in  their  own  best  blood,  in  these  days,  how  they  regarded  the 
Irish .  • 

WASHINGTON    AND   THE   CATHOLICS. 

In  1790  the  immortal  George  Washington  received  an 
address  from  the  Catholics  of  America,  signed  by  Bishop 
Carroll,  of  Maryland,  and  many  others.  Replying  to  that 
address,  the  calm,  magnificent  hero  makes  use  of  these  words : 
"I  hope,"  he  says,  "ever  to  see  America  among  the  foremost 
tnations  in  an  example  of  justice  and  liberty,  and  I  presume 
hat  your  fellow-citizens  will  not  forget  the  patriotic  part  which 
yoy.  took  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  revolution^  and  in  the 


95 

establishment  of  their  Government,  or  the  important  assistance 
they  received  from  a  nation  in  which  the  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  RE- 
LIGION was  professed"  In  the  month  of  December,  1781,  the 
Friendly  Sons  of  Saint  Patrick,  in  Philadelphia,  elected  George 
Washington  a  member  of  their  Society.  These  Friendly  Sons 
of  Saint  Patrick  were  great  friends  of  the  great  American 
father  of  his  country.  When  his  army  lay  at  Valley  Forge, 
twenty-seven  members  of  the  Society  of  the  Friendly  Sons  sub- 
scribed between  them  in  July,  1780,  one  hundred  and  three 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds  sterling,  principally  of  the 
Pennsylvania  currency,  for  the  American  troops,  who  were  in 
want  of  means.  George  Washington  accepts  the  fellowship  of 
their  Society  and^ays:  "I  accept,  with  singular  pleasure,  the 
ensign  of  so  worthy  a  fraternity  as  that  of  the  Sons  of  Saint 
Patrick  ;  a  Society  distinguished  for  the  firm  adherence  of  its 
members  to  the  glorious  cause  in  which  we  are  embarked." 
During  that  time  what  greater  honor  could  have  been  bestowed 
by  Washington  than  that  which  he  bestowed  upon  the  Irish  ? 
When  Arnold  betrayed  the  cause  at  West  Point,  the  traitor 
Arnold,  a  name  handed  down  to  eternal  execrations  in  the 
history  of  America,  Washington  was  obliged  to  choose  the  very 
best  and  most  reliable  soldiers  in  his  army,  and  send  them  to 
that  point — to  West  Point — to  take  the  place  that  was  so  well- 
nigh  being  betrayed  by  the  trairor.  From  his  whole  army  he 
selected  the  celebrated  Pennsylvania  Line,  as  they  were  called, 
and  these  men  were  mainly  made  up  of  Irishmen.  Nay,  more  ! 
not  merely  of  Protestant  Irishmen,  or  North  American  men,  or 
of  those  who,  in  that  time,  were  called  Scotch  Irish,  for  that 
was  the  name  which,  in  the  year  of  the  revolution,  designated 
Mr.  Froude's  friends,  who  emigrated  from  Ulster.  But  looking 
over  the  muster-roll  of  the  Pennsylvania  Line,  we  find  such 
names  as  Duffy,  Maguire  and  O'Brien  ;  these  were  the  names — 
these,  and  such  as  these,  are  the  names,  not  of  Palatines,  not  of 
Scotch  planters  in  Ireland,  but  they  are  the  names  of  thorough- 
bred Irish  Celts.  They  fought  and  bled  for  Washington,  and 
Washington  loved  them. 


96 

THE   PENNSYLVANIA  LINE. 

And  now  I  wish  to  give  you  a  little  incident  of  that  celebrat- 
ed corps,  to  let  you  see  how  their  hearts  were  in  relation  to 
America.  <« During  the  American  Revolution,"  says  Mr. 
Carey,  < « a  band  of  Irishmen  were  embodied  in  the  defense  of 
the  country  of  their  adoption  against  the  country  of  their  birth  ; 
they  formed  the  major-part  of  the  celebrated  Pennsylvania  Line ; 
they  bravely  fought  and  bled  for  the  United  States  ;  many  of 
them  sealed  their  attachment  with  their  lives,  but  their  adopted 
country  neglected  them  somewhat ;  the  wealthy,  the  independ- 
ent and  the  luxurious,  for  whom  they  fought,  rioted  in  the 
superfluities  of  life,  while  their  defenders  were  literally  half- 
starved,  half-naked ;  their  shoeless  feet  marked  with  blood 
their  tracks  upon  the  highway.  They  Iqng  bore  their  griev- 
ances patiently  ;  they  had  long  murmured  ;  they  remonstrated 
imploringly  for  the  necessities  of  life,  but  in  vain.  A  deaf  ear 
was  turned  to  their  complaints  ;  they  felt  indignant  at  the  cold 
neglect  and  ingratitude  of  their  country,  for  four  thousand  of 
their  companions-in-arms  had  expired  on  the  crimson  field  of 
battle;  they  held  arms  in  their  hands,  and  they  mutinied. 
Well,  as  soon  as  the  English  commanders  had  heard  that  the 
Irish  soldiers  had  mutinied,  what  did  they  do?  Intelligence 
was  carried  to  the  British  camp,  and  it  spread  joy  and  gladness. 
Lord  Howe  hoped  that  the  period  had  arrived  for  the  end  of 
the  rebellion,  as  it  was  termed,  and  that  there  was  a  glorious 
opportunity  to  crush  the  half- formed  embryo  republic.  He 
counted  firmly  on  the  intense  resentment  of  the  natives  of  the 
" Emerald  Isle" — well  he  knew  how  irritable  their  tempers 
were ;  he  calculated  upon  diminishing  the  strength  and  the 
numbers  of  the  rebels,  and  an  accession  of  the  same  numbers 
to  the  royal  army.  Messengers  were  dispatched  to  the  muti- 
neers, and  they  had  a  carte  blanche  to  make  their  own  terms. 
Promises  were  to  be  made  to  them  as  to  prodigal  children  feed- 
ing upon  husks,  that  they  should  return  to  the  plentiful  fields 
of  their  royal  masters.  Liberality  itself  presided  in  their 
house,  with  abundant  supplies,  and  provisions  ample  enough  for 
their  heart's  desire  ;  all  arrears  of  pay,  and  abundant  pardon 
for  past  offenses  were  offered  to  them.  There  was  not,  how- 


97 

ever,  any  hesitation  among  these  poor,  neglected  warriors  ;  they 
refused  to  renounce  poverty,  nakedness,  suffering  and  ingrat- 
itude. Splendid  temptations  were  held  out  to  them  in  vain  ; 
there  was  no  Judas,  there  was  no  Arnold  among  them  ;  they 
seized  upon  their  tempters,  and  trampled  upon  their  shining 
gold.  They  sent  them  to  their  General,  and  these  miserable 
wretches  paid  their  forfeited  lives  for  attempting  to  seduce  a 
band  of  ragged,  forlorn,  deserted,  but  illustrious  heroes.  "We 
prate,"  he  says,  "about  the  old  Roman  and  Grecian  patriot- 
ism. One-half  of  it  is  false,  and  in  the  other  half  there  is 
nothing  that  excels  these  noble  traits  in  our  army,  which  are 
worthy  of  the  pencil  of  a  West  or  a  Trumbull." 

HOW   AMERICA    REGARDED    IRELAND. 

Mark  how  it  is  that  America  regarded  them — mark  the  testi- 
mony of  some  of  America's  greatest  men.  Mr.  Froude  seems 
to  think  that  the  American  people  look  upon  the  Irish  nation 
and  the  Irish  people  pretty  much  with  the  eyes  with  which  the 
men  of  the  last  century  would  look  upon  them  in  Ireland,  where 
the  Irish  nation  meant 'the  Protestant  people  of  Ireland,  and  the 
Catholics  did  not  exist  at  all.  Was  this  the  view  that  America 
and  her  statesmen  took  of  it  ?  No  !  Here  is  the  testimony  of 
George  William  Park  Curtis,  the  adopted  son  of  Washington  : 
"  The  Irish,"  he  says,  «  in  1829  won  Catholic  Emancipation  ; 
and  before  that  time,  when  they  were  struggling  for  emancipa- 
tion, they  appealed  for  sympathy  and  moral  support  to  Amer- 
ica." 'And  now  this  is  how  this  great  American  gentleman 
speaks  of  them  :  "And  why  is  this  imposing  appeal  made  for 
our  sympathies  ?  It  is  an  appeal  from  them,  from  Ireland, 
whose  generous  sons,  alike  in  the  days  of  our  calamity  and  of 
our  glory,  shared  in  our  misfortunes  and  joyed  in  our  success. 
Who,  with  undaunted  courage,  breasted  the  storm  which  once 
threatened  to  overwhelm  us,  and  hurled  with  fearful  and  deso- 
lating fury  throughout  this  now  happy  land  ;  who,  with  aspira- 
tions deep  and  fervent  for  our  cause,  whether  under  the  walls  of 
the  Castle  of  Dublin  or  in  the  shock  of  our  battles,  or  in  the 
feeble  and  expiring  accents  of  famine  and  misery,  or  amid  the 
horrors  of  the  prison  ship,  cried,  from  their  hearts,  «<  GOD  SAVE 


98 

AMERICA  !  "  Oh  !  tell  me  not,"  he  goes  on  to  say  ;  «  tell  me 
not  of  the  aid  which  we  received  from  another  European  nation, 
in  the  struggle  for  independence  ;  that  aid  was  most  needed,  and 
and  all-essential  to  our  ultimate  success  ;  but  remember  the 
years  of  the  conflict  that  had  rolled  away  ;  the  capture  of  Bur- 
goyne  had  ratified  the  « Declaration  of  Independence  ;'  the  re- 
newed combats  on  the  Heights  of  Charlestown  and  Fort  Moul- 
trie ;  the  bloody  and  disastrous  days  of  Long  Island  and  Ger- 
mantown  ;  the  glories  of  Brandywine,  Newton,  Princeton  and 
Monmouth  ;  all  had  occurred  and  the  rank  grass  had  grown 
over  the  grave  of  many  a  poor  Irishman  who  had  died  for 
America,  before  the  flag  of  the  Allies  floated  in  the  field  by  the 
side  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner." 

IRISH    LOVE    FOR   AMERICAN    LIBERTY. 

"But,"  he  adds,  "of  the  brave  heroes  of  the  war — I  mean  the 
soldiers  up  to  the  coming  of  the  French — Ireland  furnished  a 
ratio  of  one  hundred  men  for  any  one  of  any  foreign  nation 
whatever."  Then  this  generous  American  gentleman,  to  whom 
Ireland  appealed  for  sympathy — for  Mr.  Froude's  is  not  the 
first  appeal  that  has  been  made  to  the  people  of  America — this 
high-minded  gentleman  goes  on  to  say  :  "Then  all  honor  be 
paid  for  all  the  good  service  of  the  sons  of  Erin  in  that  war  of 
Independence.  Let  the  shamrock  be  intertwined  with  ihe 
laurels  of  the  Revolution  ;  let  truth  and  justice  guide  the  pen 
of  history,  and  subscribe  on  the  tablets  of  America's  remem- 
brance— ETERNAL  GRATITUDE  TO  IRISHMEN."  Remember  that 
this  was  Washington's  son  ;  remember  that  he  tells  us  that  the 
old,  gray-headed,  crippled  veterans,  who  had  fought  under  his 
father's  banner  in  that  war  of  independence,  were  accustomed 
to  come  to  his  house,  and  there  he  would  receive  them  at  the 
door  and  bring  them  in  ;  and  he  tells  us  most  affectingly  of  one 
old  Irishman  who  had  fought  in  the  wars  ;  who,  after  drinking 
the  health  of  the  gentleman  who  had  entertained  him,  lifted 
up  his  aged  eyes,  and,  with  tears,  he  said  :  "  Now,  let  me 
drink  to  General  Washington,  who  is  in  Heaven  this  day." 
He  says,  on  the  same  occasion:  "Americans,  recall  to  your  mind 
the  recollections  of  the  heroic  time  when  Irishmen  were  our 


99 
friends;  when  in  the  whole  world  we  hadn't  a  friend  besides." 

AN  IRISH  « HURRAH"  FOR  AMERICA. 

«*  Look  to  the  period  that  tried  men's  souls,  and  you  will  find 
that  the  sons  of  Erin  rushed  to  our  ranks,  and  amid  the  clash  of 
steel,  on  many  a  memorable  day,  many  a  John  Byrne  was  not 
idle."  Remember,  he  does  not  say,  many  a  Spraggs  or  many 
a  Gibbs,  or  men  that  came  over  with  Cromwell,  but  honest 
John  Byrne.  Who  was  this  honest  John  Byrne  of  whom  he 
speaks  ?  He  was  an  Irish  soldier  of  Washington's,  who,  taken 
prisoner  by  the  English  and  put  on  board  a  prison-ship,  on  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Curtis,  "  he  there  was  left  in  chains  in  the  hold 
of  the  ship  —  pestilence  being  on  board.  He  was  more  than 
half-starved  ;  he  was  scarcely  able,  when  he  was  summoned  on 
deck,  to  crawl,  like  a  poor  stricken  creature,  to  the  command- 
er's feet  to  hear  what  sentence  was  to  be  pronounced  upon  him . 
And  then  the  English  Commander  offered  him  liberty,  life, 
clothing,  food  and  money  if  he  would  give  up  the  cause  in 
which  he  was  taken  prisoner,  and  join  the  ranks  of  the  British 
army.  In  a  voice  scarcely  able  to  speak  ;  with  a  hand  scarcely 
able  to  lift  itself  up,  the  Irishman  looked  to  Heaven,  and  throw- 
ing up  his  hands,  cried  out — «  Hurrah  for  America  !' "  In  the 
face  of  such  facts  ;  in  the  face  of  such  testimony;  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  honored  name  and  record  of  George  Washington, 
testifying  to  what  the  Irish  Catholic  men  have  done  for  Amer- 
ica, Mr.  Froude  speaks  as  faintly  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  the 
hurricane  that  sweeps  over  his  head,  when  he  tries  to  impress 
the  American  mind  and  the  American  people  with  any  prejudice 
against  the  poor  Catholics  of  Ireland.  What  does  MacNevin 
tell  us  of  the  year  1809,  when  America  was  preparing  for  a 
second  war  with  England  ?  MacNevin  records  that  one  of  the 
offenses  charged  upon  the  Irish,  and  among  the  many  pretexts 
for  refusing  redress  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  was  that  sixteen 
thousand  of  them  fought  on  the  side  of  America.  But  he  adds, 
"That  many  more  thousands  are  ready  to  maintain  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  and  that  will  be  their  second  offense." 

Now,  my  friends,  there  are  other  testimonies,  as  well  as  these, 
gf  the  rnen  of  the  time  ;  we  have  the  testimony  of  American 


literary  gentlemen — such,  for  instance,  as  that  of  Mr.  Paulding, 
Here  are  the  words  of  the  distinguished  American  : 

HOW   AMERICANS   HAVE    SPOKEN    OF   IRELAND. 

"The  history  of  Ireland's  unhappy  connection  with  England 
exhibits,  from  the  first  to  the  last}  a  detail  of  the  most  persever- 
ing* galling,  grinding,  insulting  and  systematic  oppression  to  be 
found  any  where,  except  among  the  Helots  of  Sparta.  There 
is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been  insulted  and  trodden 
under  foot,  or  a  national  right  that  has  not  been  withheld,  un- 
til fear  forced  from  the  grasp  of  the  English  all  the  dear  an- 
cient prejudices  that  have  not  varied  in  that  obstinate  country. 
As  Christians,  the  people  of  Ireland  have  been  denied,  under 
the  penalty  of  disqualification,  the  exercise  of  the  right  of  the 
Catholic  religion  —  venerable  for  its  antiquity,  admirable  for  its 
unity,  and  consecrated  in  the  belief  of  some  of  the  best  men 
that  ever  breathed.  As  men,  they  have  been  deprived  of  the 
common  right  of  British  subjects,  under  the  pretext  that  they 
were  incapable  of  enjoying  them,  for  which  pretext  they  had 
no  other  foundation  than  their  resistance  to  oppression,  only  the 
more  sore  by  the  long  sanction  of  it  by  the  law.  England  first 
denied  them  the  right  of  improvement,  and  then  insulted  them 
with  the  imputation  of  barbarism."  Another  distinguished 
American,  Mr.  Johnson,  says  ;  "There  is  no  instance,  even  in 
the  Ten  Persecutions,  of  such  severity  as  that  which  has  been 
exercised  over  the  Catholics  of  Ireland."  Thus  think,  and  thus 
spoke  the  men  whose  names  are  bright  in  the  records  of  Literary 
America.  Taking,  again,  the  unanimous  address  agreed  to  by 
several  members  of  the  Legislature  of  Maryland,  speaking  of 
Ireland,  these  American  Senators  and  legislators  say  :  "That 
dependency  of  Great  Britain  has  long  languished  under  an  op- 
pression reprobated  by  all  humanity,  and  discountenanced  by 
all  just  policy.  It  would  argue  a  penury  of  feeling  —  an  igno- 
rance of  human  rights,  to  submit  patiently,  through  centuries, 
to  wrongs  which  have  caused  perpetual  risings  in  Ireland  ;  but 
only  with  partial  success.  Rebellion  and  insurrection  have 
continued  with  but  short  intervals  of  tranquility.  America  has 
opened  her  arms  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations,  No  people 


have  availed  themselves  of  the  asylum  with  more  alacrity,  or 
in  greater  numbers  than  the  Irish.  High  is  the  meed  of  praise, 
rich  is  the  reward  that  Irishmen  have  merited  through  the 
gratitude  of  America.  As  heroes  and  statesmen,  they  honor 
their  adopted  country."  Bravo  !  Until  such  glorious  words  as 
these  are  wiped  out  of  the  records  of  the  American  history  ;  un- 
til  the  generous  sentiments  which  inspired  them  have  ceased 
to  be  a  portion  of  the  American  nature,  then,  and  not  before 
then,  will  Mr.  Froude  get  the  verdict  which  he  seeks  from 
America  to  -day. 

I  have  looked  through  the  American  Archives,  and  I  have 
found  that  the  foundation  of  these  sympathies  lies  in  the  simple 
fact  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  heart  and  soul  with  you, 
American  gentlemen,  with  you  and  your  fathers,  in  that  glori 
ous  struggle.  I  find  that  in  the  third  volume  of  the  American 
Archives,  a  letter  from  Ireland,  dated  September  17,  1775,  to 
a  friend  in  New  York,  in  which  the  American  gentleman  writ- 
ing said  :  "Most  of  the  people  here  wish  well  to  the  cause  in 
which  you  are  engaged.  They  are  raising  recruits  throughout 
this  kingdom.  The  men  are  told  that  they  are  only  going  to 
Edinburgh  to  learn  military  discipline,  and  then  to  return."  Be- 
fore they  got  a  single  Irishman  to  enlist,  they  had  to  tell  him  a 
lie,  well  knowing  they  were  going  to  arm  him,  and  to  send  him 
to  America  to  fight  against  the  American  people  ;  well  knowing 
that  they  would  never  have  entered  the  ranks  of  the  British 
army  for  any  such  purpose. 

A  certain  Major  Roche  went  down  to  Cork,  to  recruit  up  for 
America,  and  he  made  a  great  speech  to  them  ;  it  was  very 
laughable.  He  called  upon  them  as  Irishmen,  by  all  that  they 
held  sacred,  the  glorious  nationality  to  which  they  belonged, 
the  splendid  monarch  that  governed  them,  and,  in  fact,  the 
very  words,  almost,  which  Mr.  Froude  alleges  to  have  been 
used  by  Lord  Fingal,  were  used  by  Major  Roche  to  these  poor 
men  ;  and  then  he  held  up  the  golden  guineas  and  the  pound 
notes  before  them,  and  here  is  the  record,  in  the  third  volume, 
again,  of  the  American  Archives,  accounting  for  the  success  of 
Major  Roche,  in  raising  recruits  to  fight  against  America.  The 
service  was  so  distasteful  to  the  people  of  Ireland  in  general 


that  few  of  the  recruiting  officers  could  prevail  upon  the  men  to 
enlist  and  fight  against  their  American  brothers."  That  same 
year,  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  Mr.  Johnson  says :  "I 
maintain  that  the  sons  of  the  best  and  the  wisest  men  in  this 
country  are  on  the  side  of  the  Americans,  and  in  Ireland,  three 
to  one  are  on  the  side  of  the  Americans."  In  the  House  of 
Lords,  in  the  same  year  of  1775,  the  Duke  of  Richmond  makes 
this  statement :  "Attempts  have  been  made  to  enlist  the  Irish 
Roman  Catholics,  but  the  minister  knows  well  that  these  attempts 
have  been  proved  unsuccessful."  We  find,  again,  the  Congress 
of  America  addressed  the  people  of  Ireland  in  that  memorable 
year  of  1775,  and  here  are  the  words: 

AMERICA'S  GREETING  TO  IRELAND 

That  America's  first  Congress  sends  over  the  Atlantic  waves 
to  the  afflicted,  down-trodden  Catholic  Irish,  and  says,  "ac- 
cept our  most  grateful  acknowledgement  for  the  friendly  dis- 
position you  have  always  shown  toward  us.  We  know  that 
you  are  not  without  your  grievances;  we  sympathize  with  you 
in  your  distress,  and  we  are  pleased  to  find  that  the  design  of 
subjugating  us  has  persuaded  the  administration  to  dispense 
to  Ireland  some  vagrant  rays  of  ministerial  sunshine  with  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  Government  that  has  long  been  cruel  to 
you.  In  the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungry  parasites 
were  fed,  and  have  grown  strong  laboring  in  her  destruction." 
We  find  such. words  as  these  addressed  not  to  the  Palatines  and 
planters,  for  if  the  Congress  of  America  were  addressing  the 
Planters  and  Cromwellians  in  Ireland,  they  would  not  have 
nsed  such  language  as  this:  "In  the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland, 
many  hungry  parasites  were  fed,  and  have  grown  strong  labor- 
ing  in  its  destruction." 

THE   PENAL   LAWS:    "  REQUIESCAT    IN    PACE." 

Benjamin  Franklin,  glorious  and  immortal  name  !  was  in 
Versailles  as  Minister  from  tht  American  Government.  He 
writes  to  the  people  of  Ireland,  in  October  1778,  and  says: 
"The  years  of  misery  and  distress  which  that  ill-fated  country 
has  been  so  frequently  exposed  to,  and  so  often  experienced  by 


io3 

such  a  combination  of  rapine,  treachery  and  villainy  as  would 
have  disgraced  the  name  of  the  most  arbitrary  government  of  the 
world,  has  most  sincerely  affected  us,  and  your  experiences 
have  engaged  the  most  serious  attention  of  Congress  in 
America." 

Now  I  come  to  another  honored  name.  We  find,  in  the 
testimony  of  Verplanck,  when  the  Catholic  Emancipation  Act 
was  passed,  there  was  a  banquet  in  the  City  of  New  York  to 
celebrate  the  event,  and  this  distinguished  American  gentleman 
proposed  a  health  or  a  toast,  and  it  was  a  Catholic  toast,  '  The 
Penal  Laws:  Requiescat  in  Pace — (  May  they  rest  in  peace  ) ." 

««  And  now,  again,"  continues  Mr.  Verplanck,  "I  have  a  good 
word  to  say  for  them."  What  was  that  good  word?  Here  it 
is:  "That  in  the  glorious  struggle  for  our  independence,  and 
in  our  more  recent  contest  for  national  rights,  those  laws  gave 
to  the  American  flag  the  support  of  hundred  and  thousands  of 
brave  hearts  and  strong  arms,  and  with  that  good,  too,"  he 
says,  "at  the  same  time  contributing  an  equal  portion  of  intellect- 
ual and  moral  power." 

WM.  H.  SEWARD'S  TESTIMONY. 

Coming  down  to  our  own  time,  passing  over  the  magnificent 
testimony  of  Henry  Clay,  and  his  sympathy  for  Catholic  Ire- 
land, America,  even  at  this  hour,  is  mourning  over  the  grave  of 
a  great  man.  But  a  few  days  ago  a  nation  accompanied  to  its 
last  resting-place  the  remains  of  William  H.  Seward.  And  this 
illustrious* American  statesman  said,  in  1847:  "Ireland  not 
only  sympathized  profoundly  with  the  Transatlantic  Colonies  in 
their  complaints  of  her  usurpation,  under  which  she  suffered 
more  sorely  than  they,  but  with  an  interest,  benevolence  and 
ardor,  she  yielded  at  once  to  the  great  American  idea  of  uni- 
versal emancipation,  ready  to  fight  and  to  war  for  the  rights  of 
human  nature  under  a  propitious  God,  who  seemed  to  lead  the 
way." 

Finally,  with  one  more  extract,  and  I  have  done  with  this 
portion  of  my  lecture.  I  find  that  such  were  the  relations  be- 
tween Ireland  and  America  in  that  struggle  that  a  certain 
Captain  Wicks,  of  the  ship  " Reprisal,"  in  the  summer  of  1776, 


captured  three  prizes  near  the  West  Indies,  which  were  English 
property.  He  detailed  some  of  his  own  men  on  board  of  them, 
and  sent  them  to  the  nearest  port  to  be  adjudged  as  prizes. 
Shortly  after  he  came  across  another  vessel  and  he  let  her  go, 
finding  she  was  Irish  property.  The  Marquis  Chasteloux,  a 
distinguished  Frenchman,  who  was  in  America  in  1783,  writes 
thus  :  "  An  Irishman,  the  instant  he  sets  his  foot  on  American 
soil,  becomes  ipso  facto  an  American.  *This  was  uniformly  the 
case  during  the  whole  of  the  late  war."  Remember  this  French- 
man was  righting  for  you.  "  While  Englishmen  and  Scotch- 
men were  hated  with  jealousy  and  distrust,  even  with  the  best 
recommendations  of  zeal  and  attachment  to  the  cause,  the  native 
of  Ireland  stood  in  need  of  no  other  certificate  than  his  dialect," 
which  shows  that  the  Irishman  that  our  French  friend  is  speak- 
ing of  was  not  a  Palatine,  nor  a  Planter,  but  a  genuine  Paddy, 
and  no  mistake  about  it.  His  sincerity  was  never  called  in 
question  ;  he  was  supposed  to  have  a  sympathy  with  suffering 
and  every  one  decided,  as  it  were,  instantly  in  his  favor.  ««  In- 
deed," he  adds,  "their  conduct  in  the  late  war  amply  justified 
this  favorable  opinion,  for  whilst  the  Irish  emigrant  was  fight- 
ing the  battles  of  America  by  sea  and  by  land,  the  Irish  mer- 
chants, principally  of  Charlestown,  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia, 
labored  with  indefatigable  zeal  at  all  hazards  to  promote  the 
spirit  of  enterprise  and  increase  the  wealth  and  maintain  the 
credit  of  the  country.  Their  purse  was  always  open  and  their 
persons  were  devoted  to  the  country's  cause,  and,  on  more  than 
one  imminent  occasion,  Congress  itself,  and  the  very  existence  of 
America  probably,  owed  its  preservation  to  the  fidelity^and  firm- 
ness of  the  Irish.  « « I  had  the  honor, "  he  says,  < « of  dining  with 
an  Irish  Society  composed  of  the  steadiest  merchants  and  others 
of  the  city,  in  the  city  tavern  of  Philadelphia,  on  St.  Patrick's 
Day."  Mr.  Froude  must  not  run  away  with  the  assertion  that  the 
Irish  merchants  of  Charlestown  and  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia 
were  the  Puritan  settlers.  If  they  had  been  they  would  have 
gone  home  and  eaten  a  cold  dinner  on  St.  Patrick's  Day." 

THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  1782. 

So  much  for  America  and  Ireland's  relations  with  her.    When 


IDS 

the  4,000  men  were  asked  by  the  English  Government  to  go  out 
and  fight  the  Americans,  they  offered  to  send  to  Ireland  4,000 
Protestant  Hessians,  and  the  Irish  Parliament  which  was  there 
had  the  grace  to  refuse  the  Hessians.  They  said  "No  !  if  the 
country  is  in  danger  we  can  arm  some  of  our  Protestant  people 
and  they  can  keep  the  peace." 

Out  of  this  sprang  the  •«  Volunteers  of  '82."  Mr.  Froude  has 
little  or  nothing  to  say  of  them.  Consequently,  if  I  am  answer- 
ing or  trying  to  answer  him,  I  must  restrict  also  their  record. 
All  I  can  say  is  this,  Ireland,  in  1776,  began  to  arm.  This 
movement  was  altogether  a  Protestant  one,  and  confined  to  the 
North.  The  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  ground  into  the  very 
dust.  No  sooner  did  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  hear  that  their 
Protestant  oppressors  were  anxious  to  do  something  for  the  old 
land,  than  they  came  and  said  to  them,  «<  We  will  forgive  every 
thing  you  have  done  to  us  ;  we  will  leave  you  the  land  of  our 
country,  the  wealth  and  the  commerce  ;  all  we  ask  you  is  to 
put  a  gun  into  our  hands  for  one  hour.  At  first  they  were  re- 
fused, and,  my  friends,  when  they  found  they  would  not  be 
allowed  to  enter  the  ranks  of  the  Volunteers,  they  had  the 
generosity,  out  of  their  poverty,  to  collect  money  and  to  hand  it 
over  to  clothe  the  army  of  their  Protestant  fellow  -  citizens. 
Any  thing  for  Ireland.  Any  thing  for  the  man  that  would  lift 
his  hand  up  for  Ireland,  no  matter  what  his  religion  was.  The 
old  generous  spirit  was  there  ;  the  love  that  never  could  be  ex- 
tinguished was  there  ;  self- sacrifice  as  of  old.  Aye,  the  hum- 
ble love  for  any  man,  no  matter  who  he  was,  that  was  a  friend 
of  their  native  land.  Was  there  ever  such  a  generous  act  as 
this  of  the  people — the  O'Conors,  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills 
and  the  O'Connells  ? 

But  after  a  time  our  Protestant  friends  in  the  Volunteers  began 
to  think  that  these  Catholics,  after  all,  were  fine,  strapping  fel- 
lows. Somehow,  centuries  of  persecution  could  not  knock  the 
manhood  out  of  them.  "They  be  strong  men,"  says  an  old 
writer,  "and  can  bear  more  of  hard  living,  hunger  and  thirst, 
than  any  other  people  that  we  know  of."  God  knows,  their 
capability,  of  enduring  nakedness,  hunger  and  thirst,  and  every 
pther  form  pf  misery  was  well  tested  ! 


io6 

Accordingly,  we  find  that  in  1780  there  were  fifty  thousand 
Catholics  amongst  the  Volunteers.  Every  man  of  them  with  an 
arm  in  his  hands.  Mr.  Froude  says  that,  "Grattan —  the  im- 
mortal Grattan  —  that  whilst  he  wished  well  for  Ireland  —  that 
whilst  he  was  irreproachable  in  every  way,  public  and  private, 
that  at  this  time  he  was  guilty  of  a  great  mistake.  Ah  !"  says 
the  historian,  "  England  had  long  ruled  Ireland  badly,  but  had 
learned  a  lesson  from  America,  and  she  was  now  anxious  to 
govern  Ireland  well,  and  no  sooner  was  an  abuse  pointed  out 
than  it  was  immediately  remedied,  and  if  just  laws  were  wanted 
they  were  immediately  granted,  and  the  mistake  Grattan  made 
was,  that  instead  of  insisting  on  just  legislation  from  England, 
he  insisted  for  the  legitimate  independence  of  Ireland  ;  that  the 
Irish  should  have  the  making  of  their  own  laws."  Thus,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Froude,  "the  energies  of  the  nation  which  were 
wasted  in  political  contention  could  have  been  husbanded  to 
induce  England  to  grant  just  and  fair  laws."  But  he  goes  on  the 
assumption,  my  dear  American  friends  —  the  gentleman  goes 
on  the  assumption  that  England  was  willing  to  redress  grievan- 
ces, to  repeal  the  bad  laws  and  make  good  ones,  and  he  proves 
this  assertion  by  saying,  "that  she  struck  off  of  the  wrists  of 
the  Irish  merchants  the  chains  of  their  commercial  slavery,  and 
that  she  restored  to  Ireland  her  trade."  You  remember  that  this 
trade  was  taken  away  from  them.  The  woolen  trade  and  nearly 
every  other  form  of  trade  was  discountenanced  or  ruined. 

ENGLAND'S    UNGENEROUS    POLICY. 

Now,  I  wish,  for  the  sake  of  the  honor  of  England,  that  she 
was  as  generous  or  even  as  just  as  Mr.  Froude  represents  her, 
and  as  he  no  doubt  would  wrish  her  to  be  ;  but  we  have  the  fact 
before  us  that  in  1779,  when  a  movement  was  made  to  repeal 
the  laws  restricting  the  commerce  of  Ireland,  that  the  English 
Parliament,  the  English  King,  the  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
and  the  English  Government  opposed  it  to  the  very  death.  They 
would  not  have  it — not  one  fetter  would  they  strike  off  from 
the  chain  that  encumbered  even  the  Protestants  and  the  Planters 
of  Ireland.  And  it  was  only  when  Grattan  rose  up  in  the  Irish 
Parliament  and  insisted  that  Ireland  should  get  back  her  trade; 


to; 

it  was  only  then  that  England  consented  — because  there  were 
fifty  thousand  volunteers  armed  outside. 

The  state  of  Ireland  at  the  time  is  thus  described  :  "  Such  is 
the  constitution  that  three  millions  of  good  faithful  subjects,  in 
their  native  land,  are  excluded  from  every  trust,  power,  and 
emolument  in  the  State,  civil  and  military  ;  excluded  from  all 
corporate  rights  and  immunities;  excluded  from  grand  juries; 
and  restrained  in  petty  juries  ;  excluded  in  every  direction  from 
every  trust,  from  every  incorporated  society,  and  from  every 
establishment,  occasional  or  fixed,  that  was  instituted  for  public 
defense;  from  the  bank,  from  the  bench,  from  the  exchange, 
from  the  university,  from  the  college  of  physicians,  and  from 
what  were  they  not  excluded?"  asks  the  writer.  «« There  is 
no  institution  which  the  wit  of  man  has  invented,  or  the  progress 
of  society  has  produced,  which  private  charity  or  public  munifi- 
cence has  founded,  for  the  advancement  of  education  around  us, 
for  the  permanent  relief  of  age,  infirmity  and  misfortune,  from 
the  participation  of  the  benefits  of  which,  on  all  occasions,  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  were  not  carefully  excluded." 

FREE  TRADE  FOR  IRELAND  GAINED. 

Grattan  rose  up  in  the  Senate,  and  lifting  up  his  heroic  hand 
and  voice  to  Heaven,  he  swore  before  the  God  of  Justice  that 
that  should  come  to  an  end.  The  English  Government  heard 
him  with  a  determination  as  great  as  that  of  the  Irish  patriot, 
and  swore  equally  that  that  should  remain  the  law.  Was  it  not 
time  to  assert  for  Ireland  her  independence  ?  Mr.  Froude 
claims  that  England  willingly  consented  to  give  up  the  restric- 
tions on  Irish  commerce  when  Grattan  proposed  it  in  the  House. 
An  official  of  the  Government,  named  Hussey  Bird,  rose  up,  to 
the  astonishment  of  the  Government,  and  seconded  Grattan's 
resolution  ;  to  the  rage  and  consternation  of  the  Government 
factions  by  the  unequivocal  demonstration  of  the  Executive  of 
the  Ministerial  Bench.  Hussey  Bird  was  one  of  the  most  fas- 
cinating men  of  the  day ;  he,  of  whom  it  was  thought  patriotism 
was  impossible,  moved  "that  we  take  up  the  question  and  rep- 
resent to  his  Majesty  that  it  was  not  by  any  temporary  expe- 
dients, but  by  free  trade  alone  that  this  nation  is  now  to  be 


lo8 

saved  from  impending  ruin.  While  they  were  fighting  the 
Government  within,  Grattan  took  good  care  to  have  the  Volun- 
teers drawn  out  in  the  streets  of  Dublin  ;  there  they  were  in 
their  thousands ;  armed  men,  drilled  men ;  and  they  had  their 
cannons  with  them*  and  about  the  mouths  of  the  guns  they  had 
tied  a  label,  or  card  with  these  words  :  "FREE  TRADE  FOR 

IRELAND,  OR  ELSE -." 

So  it  happened  that  Lord  North  was  obliged,  greatly  against 
his  will,  to  introduce  measures  to  restore  to  Ireland  her  trade. 
Now,  I  ask,  was  not  Henry  Grattan  justified,  seeing  .that  by 
pointing  cannons  at  them  it  threw  off  the  restrictions,  when  he 
said,  "This  English  Parliament  will  never  do  us  justice,  and,  in 
the  name  of  God,  now  that  we  have  our  men  armed  around  us, 
let  us  demand  for  Ireland  a  perfect  independence  of  the  people 
from  the  Parliament  of  England,  and  the  rights  to  make  what- 
ever laws  that  are  most  conducive  to  the  welfare  of  our  own 
people." 

THE   OLD   IRISH   PARLIAMENT. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  Grattan  failed  ;  it  is  perfectly  true 
that,  although  that  declaration  of  independence  was  proclaimed 
by  law,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude  observes,  "  Home  Rule  was  tried 
in  Ireland  from  '82  to  '99,  and  it  was  a  failure."  All  this  is 
true  ;  but  why  was  it  so,  my  friends  ?  Reflect  upon  this  ;  the 
Irish  Parliament  did  not  represent  the  nation  ;  the  Irish  Par- 
liament consisted  of  three  hundred  members,  and  of  these  three 
hundred  there  were  only  seventy-two  that  were  elected  by  the 
people;  all  the  others  were  from  "Nomination  Boroughs,"  as 
they  were  called.  Certain  great  lords,  barons  and  noblemen 
had  three  or  four  little  towns  in  their  estates,  which  towns  re- 
turned a  member  of  Parliament,  and  the  poor  people  who  had 
the  votes  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  landlord,  who  made  the 
regular  ««  Nominations,"  and  put  up  whoever  he  desired,  and 
the  people  were  compelled  to  vote  for  him  or  suffer  the  conse- 
quences. Just  as  in  the  Protestant  Church,  whenever  a  Bishop 
dies,  the  Queen  comes  and  writes  to  the  clergy,  and  says  you 
will  name  such  a  one  for  Bishop  and  then  they  elect  him.  Only 
seventy-two  members,  were  in  some  sense,  representatives  of 
the  people.  But  whom  did  they  represent  ?  There  were  nearly 


109 

three  millions  of  Irishmen  in  Ireland,  men  of  intellect  and  of 
education,  in  spite  of  all  the  laws  that  were  made  against  schools 
and  colleges  for  Catholics  ;  there  were  three  millions  of  Irish 
Catholics  in  the  land  and  not  a  man  of  them  had  a  vote,  even 
for  a  member  of  Parliament.  And  therefore  this  wretched  Par- 
liament that  only  represented  one-tenth  of  the  nation,  if  it  was 
venal  and  corrupt,  it  is  no  disgrace  to  the  Irish  people  and  it  is 
no  argument  that  they  did  not  know  how  to  govern  themselves. 
Meantime,  the  volunteers  made  the  most  tremendous  mistake, 
and  that  was  by  letting  Catholics  in  amongst  their  ranks. 
Here  I  have  my  Lord  Sheffield.  Here  is  what  he  says,  (I  de- 
sire you  clearly  to  understand,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  Amer- 
ica, how  the  English  people  looked  upon  us  Irish  a  hundred 
years  ago  ;  as  they  ever  looked  upon  you,  until  you  taught 
them  by  the  sword  to  look  upon  you  with  more  respect.)  "It  is 
now  necessary,"  said  Lord  Sheffield,  in  1778,  "to  take  notice  of 
a  phenomenon  that  has  begun  to  appear  at  this  time  ;  it  is  a 
wonderful  thing."  What  was  it  ? 

A    PHENOMENON. 

"The  like  has  never  been  seen  in  any  country,  at  least 
where  there  was  an  established  government  to  describe  it;  it  is 
an  army  unauthorized  by  the  laws,  generally  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Volunteers  of  Ireland.  The  arms  issued  from  the 
public  stores  were  insufficient  to  supply  the  rapid  increase  of 
the  volunteers,  the  rest  were  procured  by  themselves,  and  the 
necessary  accoutrements,  with  a  considerable  number  of  field- 
pieces.  All  speak  highly  of  them,  and  the  supporters  of  the 
Government  in  both  countries  mention  them  with  civility."  It 
is  not  easy  to  be  uncivil  to  an  army  of  95,000  men.  "The 
wonderful  efforts  of  England  in  America  were,  somehow  or 
other,  wasted  to  no  purpose."  Wasted  to  no  purpose  !  There 
happened  to  be  a  man  in  the  way,  and  that  man  was  —  George 
Washington.  He  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  Volunteers, 
"The  many-headed  monster,"  he  calls  it  now,  "began  to  think 
it  would  be  proper  to  reform  the  State,  and  to  purge  the  Par- 
liament of  Ireland,  in  order  to  reform  the  Parliament." 

Henry  Grattan  said,  "I  will  never  claim  freedom  for  600,000 


110 

of  my  countrymen  while  I  have  two  millions  of  more  ot  them  in 
chains.  Give  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  their  civil  rights  and 
their  franchise.  Give  them  the  power  to  return  members  to  the 
Irish  Parliament,  and  let  the  nation  be  represented  ;  put  an  end 
to  the  rotten  Nomination  Boroughs  ;  let  the  members  represent 
the  people  truly,  and  you  will  have  reformed  your  Parliament 
and  established  forever  the  liberties  which  the  Volunteers  have 
won."  This  was  what  the  Volunteers  wanted,  and  for  this  Lord 
Sheffield  called  them  by  the  very  gentle  name  —  "the  many- 
headed  monster."  But  they  did  something  else  very  strange: 
"  So  far  the  events  that  went  on  might  be  expected,  but  there 
is  another  part  of  their  conduct  neither  national  nor  rational. 
Some  of  the  corps,  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  members, 
perhaps,  or,  possibly,  without  consideration,  admitted  Roman 
Catholics.  They  must  have  been  mad  —  they  did  it  without 
consideration,  and  others,  perhaps,  enrolled  them  latterly  for 
the  sake  of  acquiring  members  and  strength  to  force  a  reform  of 
tha  Government  of  England,  to  force  a  reform  which  the  gov- 
ernment of  England  never  would  permit."  Because  she  wanted 
to  have  a  rotten  Parliament  in  her  hands,  and  through  that  Par- 
liament to  destroy  the  country.  "Well,  but  that  Protestants 
should  allow  and  encourage  this  also,  and  form  a  whole  corps 
of  Roman  Catholics,  is  scarcely  to  be  believed,  considering  the 
pretensions  of  the  latter.  To  fill  their  number  up,  it  becomes  the 
system  of  the  Roman  Catholics  to  enroll  as  many  of  us  as  pos- 
sible, particularly  since  the  peace  of  last  spring,  and  there  is 
nothing  incredible  or  unequivocal  in  this.  Already,  perhaps, 
thousands  of  these  are  in  arms,  and,  in  a  year  or  less,  ten  to 
one,  all  the  Protestants  will  gradually  quit  the  service,  and  it  is 
necessary  to  prevent  the  Volunteer  arms  from  falling  into  more 
dangerous  hands — 4o  counterbalance  the  Catholics."  Then  he 
goes  on  to  say  : 

"  If  they  were  only  one-fifth  instead  of  four-fifths  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  writer  of  the  observations  would  be  the  last  man  to 
suggest  about  their  getting  into  power.  But  they  are  the  men 
who  do  not  forget  the  Constitution  under  which  their  ancestors 
lived  ;  they  are  not  blind  to  what  they  might  have  acquired. 
Persevering  for  upward  of  two  centuries,  under  every  form  of  dis- 


ITT 

couragement,  under  every  severity  ;  subjected  to  every  disad- 
vantage, does  not  prove  indifference  to  the  principles  of  their 
religion,  thinking  as  they  do,  feeling  as  they  do,  being  as  they 
are,  they  would  not  be  men  if  they  did  not  wish  for  a  change. 
Nor  would  Protestants  be  worthy  of  the  description  of  reasona- 
ble creatures  if  they  did  not  take  precautions  to  prevent  it." 

NO    REFORM    ALLOWED    BY    ENGLAND. 

Thus  it  is  a  fact,  that  the  English  government  steadily  op- 
posed Reform.  It  would  not  hear  of  Reform  ;  because  they 
wanted  to  have  a  venal,  corrupt,  miserable  seventy-two  in  their 
hands.  It  is  to  this  fact,  and  not  to  any  mistake,  that  we  owe 
the  collapse  of  that  magnificent  revolution.  Well,  England 
now  adopted  another  policy.  We  have  clear  evidence  of  it.  As 
soon  as  William  Pitt  came  into  office  as  Premier,  his  first  thought 
was  to  put  an  end  to  this  Irish  difficulty.  He  would  have  no 
more  laws  made  in  Ireland  for  Irishmen.  So  he  united  the  two 
Parliaments  into  one,  and  would  not  leave  Ireland  a  single  shred 
of  its  legislative  independence.  This  being  the  programme, 
how  was  it  .to  be  worked  out  ?  Mr.  Froude  says,  or  seems  to 
say,  "that  the  rebellion  of  '98  was  one  of  those  outbreaks  of 
Irish  ungovernable  passion  and  of  Irish  inconstancy,  accompanied 
by  cowardice  and  by  treachery  of  which  we  are  but  too  familiar 
in  the  history  of  Ireland."  Now,  we  have  another  account  of  '98. 
Mr.  Froude  says,  "  that  the  rebellion  arose  out  of  the  disturb- 
ance of  men's  minds,  created  by  the  French  Revolution,"  and 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this.  "  It  set  all  the  world  in  a 
blaze,  and  the  flames  spread,  no  doubt,  to  Ireland.  Mr.  Froude 
goes  on  to  say,  "that  the  Irish  Government  was  so  hampered  by 
this  free  Parliament — this  Parliament  of  Grattan's  —  that,  al- 
though they  saw  the  danger  approaching,  they  could  not  touch 
it ;  their  hands  were  bound  ;  nay  more  !"  He  adds  :  "The 
government  was  bound  by  constitutional  law,  and  Parliament 
could  not  touch  one  of  the  United  Irishmen  until  they  had  com- 
mitted themselves  by  some  act  of  treason  —  in  other  words,  by 
first  rising  in  arms."  Now,  according  to  this  historian,  "there 
was  nothing  done  to  molest,  slay  or  persecute  the  people  of 
Ireland  until  they  rose  in  arrns  in  '98,"  My  friends,  the  rising 


112 

in  1798  took  place  on  the  23d  of  May.  On  that  day  the  United 
Irishmen  rose.  I  ask  you,  now,  whether  the  government  had 
any  share  in  that  rising  or  creating  that  rebellion. 

THE    RISING    OF    '98. 

As  early  as  1797  the  country  was  beginning  to  be  disturbed, 
according  to  Mr.  Froude,  and  we  find,  during  the  first  three 
months  of  January,  February  and  March  in  '97,  Lord  Moira 
giving  his  testimony  as  to  the  action  of  the  English  government. 
«  My  lords,"  he  says,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  "  I  have  seen  in 
Ireland  the  most  absurd,  as  well  as  the- most  disgusting  tyranny 
that  any  nation  ever  groaned  under.  I  have  been  myself  a  wit- 
ness to  it  in  many  instances  ;  I  have  seen  it  practised  unchecked, 
and  the  effects  that  have  resulted  from  it  have  been  such  as  I 
have  stated  to  your  lordships  :  I  have  seen  in  that  country  a 
marked  distinction  between  the  English  and  the  Irish ;  I  have 
seen  troops  that  have  been  sent  there  full  of  this  prejudice  — 
that  every  inhabitant  of  that  kingdom  is  a  rebel  to  the  British 
government  ;  troops  were  sent  into  Ireland  under  these  instruc- 
tions— that  every  man  you  meet  is  a  rebel,  I  have  seen  the 
most  wanton  insults  practiced  upon  men  of  all  ranks  and  condi- 
tion." They  sent  their  thousands  into  Ireland  in  preparation 
for  the  rebellion  ;  they  had,  between  -  Welch,  and  Scotch  and 
Hessian  regiments,  and  between  English  and  Irish  militia,  an 
army  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men  prepared  for  the 
work,  and  thus,  I  say,  they  goaded  the  people  on  to  rebellion. 
The  rack,  indeed,  was  not  at  hand,  but  the  punishment  of  pick^ 
eting  was  in  practice,  which  had  been  for  some  years  abolished 
as  "too  unhuman  even  for  the  treatment  of  servants.  Lord  Moira 
goes  on  to  say  :  «  <  That  he  had  known  of  a  man  who,  in  order 
to  extort  confession  of  a  crime  from  him,  was  picketed  until  he 
actually  fainted"  (picketing  meant  putting  them  on  the  point 
of  a  stake  upon  one  foot) ;  ««  and  picketed  a  second  time  until 
he  fainted  :  and  again,  as  soon  as  he  came  to  himself,  picketed 
the  third  time  until  he  fainted,  and  this  on  mere  suspicion." 
Not  only  was  this  punishment  used,  but  every  species  of  torture; 
men  were  taken  and  hung  up  until  they  were  half-dead,  then 
threatened  with  repetition  of  the  cruel  treatment  unless  they 


made  confession  of  imputed  guilt.  They  sent  the  soldiers  into 
the  country,  and  they  quartered  at  what  was  called  "  free 
quarters  ;  "  the  English  yeomanry  and  the  Orange  yeomanry 
lived  upon  the  people  ;  they  violated  the  women,  they  killed 
the  aged  ;  they  plundered  the  houses;  they 'set  fire  to  the  vil- 
lages; they  exercised  every  form  of  torture  the  most  terrible, 
did  this  dastardly  soldiery. 

IRELAND   GOADED    INTO    REBELLION. 

All  this  took  place  before  a  single  rising  in  Ireland — before 
the  rebellion  in  '98  sprung  up  at  all.  We  have  a  brave  and  gal- 
lant man  sent  to  Ireland  at  that  time,  Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie, 
and  he  declares  he  was  so  frightened  and  disgusted  at  the  con- 
duct of  the  soldiers  that  he  refused  to  keep  the  command  of  the 
forces  in  Ireland  any  longer.  He  issued  a  general  order  in 
February,  '98 — the  rebellion  did  not  begin  until  May — in  these 
words:  "The  disgraceful  frequency  of  great  cruelties  and 
crimes,  and  the  many  complaints  of  troops  in  this  kingdom,  un- 
fortunately prove  the  army  to  be  in  a  state  of  licentiousness,  and 
renders  it  formidable  to  every  one,  except  the  enemy."  Then 
he  threw  it  up  in  disgust.  General  Lake  was  sent  to  command 
in  Ireland.  He  says  :  "  The  state  of  the  country  and  its  occu- 
pation previous  to  the  insurrection  is  not  to  be  imagined,  except 
by  those  who  witnessed  the  atrocities  of  every  description  com-, 
mitted  by  the  military  and  the  Orangemen  that  were  let  loose 
upon  the  defenseless  population."  Then  he  gives  a  long  list  of 
terrible  hangings,  burnings  and  murderings.  We  read  "that 
at  Dunlaven,  in  the  County  Wicklow,  previous  to  the  rising,, 
thirty-four  men  were  shot  without  any  trial,"  but  it  is  useless  to. 
enumerate  or  continue  the  list  of  cruelties  perpetrated.  It  will 
suffice  to  say  that,  when  the  military  were  placed  on  "free 
quarters,"  that  all  kinds  of  crime  were  committed  ;  but  the 
people  were  no  worse  off  than  those  living  where  no  soldiers 
were  quartered,  for  in  the  latter  places  the  inhabitants  were 
called  to  their  doors  and  slain  without  ceremony,  and  every 
house  plundered  or  burned."  Nay,  more  !  We  have  Mr. 
Emmett,  in  his  examination,  giving  his  evidence,  and  declaring 
"that  it  was  the  fault  of  the  Government,  this  rebellion  of  '98.,'*' 


The  Lord  Chancellor  put  the  following  question  to  Mr.  Emmett: 

"  Remember,  Mr.  Emmett  "  —  this  was  in  August  '98 "  what 

caused  the  late  insurrection."  To  which  Mr.  Emmett  replied  : 
"Free  quarters,  house  burnings,  tortures,  and  all  the  military 
executions  in  the  counties  of  Kildare,  Carlow  and  Wicklow." 
Before  the  insurrection  broke  out,  numbers  of  houses,  with  their 
furniture,  were  burned  in  which  concealed  arms  had  been  found ; 
numbers  of  people  were  scourged,  picketed,  and  otherwise  put 
to  death,  daily,  to  force  confession  of  concealed  crime  or  faults  ; 
outrageous  acts  of  severity  were  often  committed  by  persons 
not  in  the  regular  troops.  But  we  have  the  evidence  of  the 
brave  Sir  John  More,  the  hero  of  Corunna.  He  was  in  Ireland 
at  the  time  in  military  command,  and  he  bears  this  testimony. 
Speaking  of  Wicklow,  the  very  hot-bed  of  the  insurrection,  he 
says  :  «  That  moderate  treatment  by  the  Generals  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  preventing  of  the  troops  from  pillaging  and  mo- 
lesting them,  would  certainly  soon  restore  tranquility  ;  the  lat- 
ter would  soon  be  quiet  if  the  revengeful  yeomanry  would  be- 
have with  tolerable  decency,  and  not  seek  to  gratify  their  revenge 
upon  the  poor." 

We  have  Lord  William  Napier,  an  Irishman,  but  a  brave 
English  soldier,  saying  :  «  Oh  !  what  manner  of  soldiers  were 
these  fellows  who  were  let  loose  upon  the  wretched  districts  in 
which  the  Ascendancy  was  placed,  killing  and  confiscating  every 
man's  life  and  property  ;  and,  to  use  the  venerable  Abercombie's 
words,  'they  were  formidable  to  every  body  but  the  enemy.'1 
We,  ourselves,  were  young  at  the  time,  yet  being  connected 
with  the  army,  we  were  continually  among  the  soldiers,  listen- 
ing with  boyish  eagerness  to  their  experience,  and  we  well  re- 
member, with  horror,  to  this  day,  the  tales  of  lust,  of  bloodshed 
and  of  pillage  ;  the  recital  of  their  actions  against  the  misera- 
ble peasantry  which  they  used  to  relate." 

THE    INFAMY    OF   THE    ENGLISH    GOVERNMENT. 

I  ask  you,  after  all  this,  who  was  accountable  for  the  goad- 
ing of  the  people  into  rebellion,  if  not  the  infamous  government 
which,  at  that  time,  ruled  and  disgraced  all  Ireland?  I  ask 
you.  are  the  Irish  people  accountable,  for,  from  the  time  the 


myrmidons  of  England  had  been  let  loose  upon  them,  ravaging 
like  demons,  violating  every  instinct  of  Irish  love  of  land,  of 
Irish  purity,  of  Irish  faith  ?  Is  it  not  a  terrible  thing  that  after 
all  these  provocations  which  they  deliberately  put  before  the 
people,  in  order  to  goad  them  into  the  rebellion  of  '98,  and  so 
prepare  the  way  for  that  union  which  followed,  that  Mr. 
Froude  says  several  hot-headed  priests  put  themselves  at  the 
head  of  their  people.  There  was  a  Father  John  Murphy  in  the 
County  of  Wexford,  who  came  home  from  his  duties,  one  day, 
to  find  his  house  burned,  his  chapel  destroyed,  and  to  find  the 
houses  of  the  poor  people  sacked  and  burned  around  them,  to 
find  his  unfortunate  parishioners  huddled  about  the  blackened 
walls  of  the  chapel,  crying:  "What  are  we  to  do?  Where  are 
we  to  flee  from  this  persecution  that  has  come  upon  us  ?"  What 
wonder  if  Father  John  Murphy  got  the  pikes,  put  them  in  their 
hands,  and  put  himself  at  their  head  ? 

WHAT    IRELAND   WILL   BE. 

My  friends,  I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  some  portions  of 
the  Irish  side  of  the  story,  resting  and  basing  my  testimony  upon 
the  records  of  Protestant  and  English  writers,  and  upon  tne  tes- 
timony which  I  have  been  so  proud  to  put  before  you,  of  noble, 
generous  American  people.  I  have  to  apologize  for  the  dryness 
of  the  subject  or  the  imperfect  manner  in  which  I  have  treated 
it,  and  also  for  the  unconscionable  length  of  time  in  which  I 
have  tried  your  patience.  On  next.  Monday  evening  we  shall 
be  approaching  ticklish  ground,  "Ireland  since  the  union,  Ire- 
land to-day,  and  Ireland  as  my  heart  and  brain  tells  me  she 
will  be  in  some  future  day." 


FIFTH   LECTURE. 


T  ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN.— This  day  a  paragraph  came  under  my 
I-/  notice  in  a  New  York  paper,  which  caused  me  much  pain  and  anguish 
of  mind,  for  it  recorded  an  act  of  discourtesy  shown  to  Mr.  Froude,  my 
learned  antagonist,  by  Irishmen  in  Boston.  In  the  name  of  the  Irishmen  of 
America,  I  tender  to  the  learned  gentleman  my  best  apologies,  and  I  beg 
to  assure  him,  on  the  part  of  my  Irish  countrymen  in  this  land,  that  we  have 
no  inclination  to  treat  him  otherwise  than  with  that  courtesy  and  hospitality 
which  Ireland  has  never  refused,  even  to  her  enemies.  Mr.  Froude  has  not 
come  among  us  as  an  enemy  of  Ireland.  He  professes  that  he  loves  the  Irish 
people,  and  I  am  willing  to  believe  him,  and  when  I  read,  in  the  report  of 
his  last  lecture,  to  which  I  am.  about  to  reply  to-night,  that  he  said  he 
yielded  to  no  one  in  his  love  for  the  Irish  people,  I  feel  inclined  to  repeat 
to  him  what  the  great  O'Connell  said  to  Lord  Derby,  when  the  noble  Lord 
said,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  he  would  yield  to  no  one  in  his  love  for  Ire- 
land. The  great  Tribune  replied  :  "  Any  man  who  loves  Ireland  can  not 
be  my  enemy.  Let  us  shake  hands  !"  I  am  sure,  therefore,  that  I  speak  the 
sentiments  of  every  true  Irishman  when  I  assure  this  gentleman  that  he  will 
receive,  in  this  land,  at  the  hands  of  the  Irish  citizens  of  America,  nothing 
but  the  same  courtesy,  the  same  polite  hospitality  and  attention  that  he  boasts 
of  having  received  from  her  people  in  their  native  land.  I  beg  to  assure  him 
that  we  Irishmen  iniAmerica  know  well  that 

IT    IS   NOT   BY  DISCOURTESY 

or  any  thing  approaching  to  rudeness  or  violence,  that  the  Irish  citizens  of 
America  can  expect  to  make  their  appeal  to  this  great  nation.  If  ever  the 
reign  of  intellect  and  of  mind  has  been  practically  established  in  this  world, 
it  is  in  glorious  America.  Every  man  who  speaks  the  truth,  and  preaches 
the  truth,  whether  it  be  religious  truth  or  historical  truth,  will  find  appreci- 
ation in  America ;  and  I  hope  I  may  never  find  an  Irishman  oflering  dis- 
courtesy or  violence  to  any  man  for  speaking  what- he  believes  or  imagines  to 
be  truth. 

I  have  said  so  much  in  reference  to  the  newspaper  paragraph  to  which  my 
attention  was  called,  and  I  now  come  to  the  last  of  Mr.  Froude's  lectures, 
and  the  last  of  my  own.  The  learned  gentleman,  in  his  fourth  lecture,  told 
the  American  people  his  view  of  the  movement  of  1772,  and  of  the  subse- 
quent Irish  rebellion  of  1798.  According  to  Mr.  Froude,  the  Irish  made  a 
great  mistake  in  1782,  by  asserting  the  independence  of  the  Irish  Parliament. 


"They  abandoned,"  says  this  learned  gentleman,  "  the  paths  of  political  re- 
form  and  they  clamored  for  political  agitation." 

No'w  political  agitation  is  one  thing,  and  political  reform  is  another  thing. 
Political  reform,  my  friends,  means  the  correcting  of  great  abuses,  the  re- 
S^ft^ws/and  the  passing  of  good  measures  salutary  and  useful  for 
die  welfare  and  well  -  being  of  the  people.  According  to  this  learned  gentle- 
man England  was  taught,  by  her  bitter  American  experience,  that  coercion 
wSf  not  answer  with  the  people,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  thrust  unjust  laws 
upon  a  people."  According  to  him,  England  was  only  too  willing,  too  hap. 
Tm  thlyear  1780,  to  repeal  all  the  bad  laws  that  had  been  passed  in  the 
bUnd  and  bigoted  ages  gone  by,  and  to  grant  to  Ireland  real,  redres  of  all 
her  grievances.  "  But  the  Irish  people,0  says  Mr.  Froude  "  instead  of  de* 
mand?ng  from  England  the  redressof  this  grievance  insisted  on  their  national 
and  Darllamentary  independence.  And  they  werefools  in  this,'  he  said,  for 
t^tverySdepeAdenceledto  interior  contention,  contention  to  conspiracy, 
—conspiracy  to  rebellion,  and  rebellion  to  tyranny." 

Now  I  am  as  great  an  enemy  of  political  agitation  as  Mr.  Froude  or  any 
other  man  I  hold,  and  I  hold  it  by  experience,  that  political  agitation  dis- 
tracts  men's  minds  from  the  more  serious  and  more  necessary  avocations  of 
life  thai  political  agitation  distracts  men's  minds  away  from  their  business 
and'  from  their  safe  pursuit  of  industry;  that  it  creates  animosity  and  bad 
Mood  between  citizens  ;  that  it  affords  an  easy  and  profitable  ^^^ 

LdeavoringPto  extract  good  laws  from  an  unwilling  and  a  tyrannical  govern 
ment  May  I  ask  the  learned  historian  what  were  the  wars  of  the  seventeenth 
£nturv  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  in  the  Netherlands  -the  wars  that  Mr. 

- 


orS  for  poHticm  agitation,  in  1780,  when  they  might  have  obtain 
re''" 


ign  power  except 


England.  England  then  fixed  her  price,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude  himself  said,  al- 
though the  French  might  be  offering  for  Irish  wool,  the  Irish  merchant  could 
not  sell  t»  them,  but  he  was 

OBLIGED   TO  SELL  TO  THE  ENGLISH    MERCHANT, 

at  his  own  price.  When  the  Irish  people  demanded  this  just  measure,  I  ask, 
was  England  willing  to  grant  it?  Was  England,  as  Mr.  Froude  says,  only 
anxious  to  discover  unjust  laws,  in  order  to  repeal  them,  and  to  discover 
grievances  in  order  to  redress  them  ?  I  answer  :  No  !  England  nailed  her 
colors  to  the  mast.  She  said  :  "  I  never  will  grant  a  repeal  of  restriction  du- 
ties on  Irish  trade.  Ireland  is  down,  and  I  will  keep  her  down  1" 

The  proof  lies  here.  The  English  Government  resisted  Grattan's  demand 
for  the  emancipation  of  Irish  industry  until  Henry  Grattan  brought  50,000 
volunteers,  and  the  very  day  that  he  rose  in  the  Irish  Parliament  and  pro- 
claimed that  Ireland  demanded  her  commercial  rights,  the  Volunteers  in  Col- 
lege Green,  and  St.  Stephen's  Green,  in  Dublin,  had  their  artillery  out  and 
planted  at  the  gates  of  the  English  House  of  Commons,  and  around  the 
mouths  of  the  cannons  was  tied  a  label,  a  significant  label  —  "  Free  trade  for 

Ireland,  or "     If  England  was  so  willing  to  redress  every  Irish  grievance, 

and  if  the  Irish  people  had  only  to  say  :  "  Look  here  ;  there  is  this  law  in  ex- 
istence ;  take  it  away,  for  it  is  strangling  and  destroying  the  trade  of  this 
country  !" — if  England  was  so  willing  to  take  away  that  law — if  she  was 
only  anxious  to  hear  of  a  bad  law  only  to  remedy  it,  in  the  name  of  God, 
why,  on  that  day,  in  1780,  did  she  hold  out  until,  at  the  very  cannon's  mouth, 
she  was  obliged  to  yield  commercial  independence  to  Ireland?  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  the  Irish  people  thought,  with  Henry  Grattan,  that,  if  every 
measure  of  reform  was  to  be  obtained  from  England  in  this  way,  the  kingdom 
would  be  always  kept  in  a  state  of  perpetual  revolution?  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  men  said  :  "  Why,  if  we  have  to  go  out  to  fight  for  every  law,  to  de- 
mand every  act  of  justice,  we  must  always  be  ready  with  our  torches  lighted 
and  our  cannons  loaded"?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Irish  people  said,  on 
that  day,  with  their  immortal  leader  :  "  It  is  far  better  for  us  to  have  our  own 
Parliament,  free  and  independent,  to  take  up  the  making  of  our  own  laws, 
to  consult  our  own  interest,  and,  in  peace  and  quietness  and  harmony,  to  take 
thoughts  on  the  wants  of  Ireland,  and  to  legislate  for  them?"  And  this  is 
what  Mr.  Froude  calls 

"  CLAMORING  FOR   POLITICAL   AGITATION." 

Thus  we  see,  my  friends  —  remember  this  evening,  fellow-  countrymen,  that 
I  am  emphatically  and  especially  appealing  to  America  ;  that  I  expect  my 
verdict  this  evening,  as  Mr.  Froude  got  his  —  and  it  is  not  from  Dr.  Hitch- 
cock.  It  is  not  the  puny  crow  of  a  barn  -  door  fowl,  but  it  is  the 

SCREAMING  OF  AMERICA'S  EAGLE  THAT  I  EXPECT  IT  FROM. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  action  of  1892,  by  which  Grattan  obtained  chiefly 
the  independence  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  did  not  originate  in  any  innate 
love  of  the  Irish  for  political  agitation,  but  in  the  action  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment that  forced  on  them  only  two  alternatives — "Remain  subject  to 
me,  to  my  Parliament,  but  I  never  will  give  you  any  thing,  except  at  the 
cannon's  mouth  ;  or  you  will  have  to  take  your  own  liberty,  and  legislate  for 
yourselves."  Oh  I  Henry  Grattan,  you  were  not  a  Catholic,  and  yet  I,  a. 
Catholic  priest,  here,  to  -  night,  call  down  ten  thousand  blessings  on  thy  name, 
and  on  thy  memory.  It  is  true  that  the  emancipated  Parliament  of  1782 


millions  and  a  half  of  Irishmen  in  Ireland  at  that  day. 

THREE   MILLIONS   WERE   CATHOLICS, 

.   A  »  half  a  million  were  Protestants,  and    the  Parliament  of  1782   only 
miserable  village  of 

HALF   A   DOZEN    WRFTCHED   HUTS, 

s:  SSssi  a  ,5SK= . s  -s '~5S  Eras 

FIRST   NAMES   AND   CHARACTERS   IN    IRELAND. 

The          inal  society  included  the  first  intellects  of  the  nation,  banded 


cordial  union  among  all  the  people  of  Ireland,  to  maintain  that  balance  which 
is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  our  liberties  and  to  the  extension  of  our 
commerce."  Resolution  No.  2  :  That  the  only  constitutional  means  by 


WAS   THERE  ANY   THING   TREASONABLE   IN  THIS? 

was  there  any  thing  reprehensible,  was  there  any  thing  deserving  of  impris- 
onment, banishment  or  death,  in  such  resolutions  as  these?  Who  opposed 
and  hindered  that  reform  ?  Who  stood  between  the  Irish  people  and  their 
Parliament,  and  said,  "  No,  there  will  be  no  reform  ;  they  must  remain  the 


nu  oir  jonn  moore,  me  nero   01  ^orunna,  tnai  ine 
iously  and  originally  the  work  of  the  British  Govc 


GOADED   THE   IRISH   PEOPLE   INTO   REBELLION. 

And  we  have  also  seen,  a  moment  ago,  that  the  United  Irishmen  was  not  a 
conspiracy,  but  a  public  society  ;  a  magnificent  reunion  of  the  best  men  and 
the  best  intellect  in  Ireland,  for  a  splendid  purpose,  to  be  accomplished  by 
fair,  loyal. and  legitimate  means.  But  the  principle  on  which  the  United 
Irishmen  were  formed  was  the  principle  of  effecting  a  union  among  all  Irish- 
men, and  this  was  enough  to  alarm  the  Government  which,  from  time  imme- 
morial and  for  many  centuries,  had  ruled  Ireland.  The  motto,  the  word, 
which  Mr.  Froude  so  wisely  said  :  "  In  that  day,  when  Irishmen  are  united, 
Ireland  will  be  invincible" —  that  was  present  in  the  mind  of  every  man  of 
them.  England's  Prime  Minister,  the  celebrated  Mr.  Pitt,  then  resolved 
upon  three  things.  He  resolved  first,  to  disarm  the  volunteers  ;  secondly,  to 
force  the  United  Irishmen  to  become  a  secret  society  or  conspiracy  ;  and, 
thirdly,  through  them  to  force  Ireland  into  a  revolt,  that  he  might  have  her  ' 
at  his  feet.  How  did  he  bring  these  three  things  about?  Remember,  I  am 
reviewing  all  this  historically.  I  have  no  prejudice  in  the  matter.  I  de- 
clare to  you,  with  the  exception  of  the  private  ebullition  of  feeling  —  boiling 
up  of  feeling  in  my  study,  when  I  am  perusing  and  preparing  these  lectures— 


121 

I  feel  nothing  about  them.  I  am  not  like  others.  I  believe,  for  instance, 
that  Mr.  Froude  has  no  business  to  write  history,  because  he  is  a  good 
philosopher.  A  philosopher  is  a  man  who  endeavors  to  trace  effects  to  their 
causes  —  who  has  a  theory  and  tr/*es  to  work  it  out ;  he  is  the  last  man  in  the 
world 

WHO    OUGHT   TO   WRITE   HISTORY. 

And  why  ?  Because  a  historian  is  supposed  to  be  a  dry  narrator  of  facts,  and 
not  to  deal  in  theories  or  fancies  at  all.  I  believe  that  my  learned  antagonist 
is  too  good  a  philosopher  to  be  a  good  historian  —  and  I  also  believe  that  he 
is  too  good  a  historian  to  be  a  good  philosopher. 

The  first  of 'these  three  designs  Mr.  Pitt  accomplished.  In  1785  he  in- 
creased the  standing  army  in  Ireland  to  fifteen  thousand  men,  and  he  ob- 
tained from  the  Irish  Parliament  a  grant  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  to  clothe 
and  organize  a  militia.  Between  the  army  on  one  side  and  the  militia  on  the 
other,  he  took  the  volunteers  between  them  in  the  centre,  and  they  were  dis- 
armed. In  the  day  when  the  last  volunteer  laid  down  his  musket,  Ireland's 
hopes  for  the  time  were  laid  down  with  it. 

The  second  of  these,  namely  :  the  forcing  of  the  United  Irishmen  into  a 
secret  conspiracy,  he  effected  in  this  manner  :  In  February,  1793,  he  passed 
two  bills  through  Parliament,  called  the  "  Gunpowder  Bill  "  and  the  "  Con- 
vention Bill."  A  public  meeting'of  the  United  Irishmen  was  held  in  Dublin — 
a  public  meeting  with  nothing  secret  about  it  —  to  protest  against  the  inquisi- 
itorial  measures  of  certain  agents  of  a  secret  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords 
—  men  who 

WERE   GOING   INTO  PEOPLE'S    HOUSES, 

at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  without  any  warrant  or  authority,  on  the 
pretended  information  that  there  was  gunpowder  concealed  in  the  house. 
For  this  public  meeting,  held  legally  and  constitutionally,  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Simon  Butler,  who  was  President  of  the  meeting,  and  Mr.  Oliver  Bond,  who 
was  Secretary  of  the  meeting,  were  imprisoned  for  six  months  and  fined  £500 
each.  When  this  illustrious  society  found  that  they  were  thus  persecuted, 
they  were  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  secresy,  and  thus  it  was  that  the  United 
Irishmen  were  forced  to  become  a  conspiracy. 

The  first  really  treasonable  project  that  was  ever  put  before  the  United 
Irishmen  was  put  before  them  in  April,  1794,  by  the  Rev.  William  Jenkins, 
a  Protestant  clergyman  who  came  over  commissioned  by  the  French  Con- 
vention, and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins  was  accompanied,  in  that  mission,  by 
John  Cockayne,  an  English  lawyer  from  London,  who  was  the  agent  of 
William  Pitt,  the  Prime  Minister  of  England.  Thus  did  the  society  of 
United  Irishmen  become  the  seat  of  conspiracy,  and  this  was  the  action  of 
the  English  Government.  Before  that  it  was  perfectly  legitimate  and  con- 
stitutional. Ah  !  but  it  had  an  object  which  was  far  more  formidable  to  the 
English  Government  than  any  action  of  treason.  The  English  Government 
is  not  afraid  of  Irish  treason,  but  the  English  Government  trembles  with  fear 
at  the  idea  of  Irish  union.  The  United  Irishmen  were  founded  to  promote 
union  among  Irishmen  of  every  religion,  and  the  Englishman  has  said  in  his 
own  mind  :  "  Treason  is  better  than  union  ;  it  will  force  them  to  become 
treasonable  conspirators  in  their  projects,  and  union  will  be  broken  up."  It 
is  well  that  you  should  hear,  my  American  friends,  what  was  the  oath  that 
was  demanded  of  the  United  Irishman. 

LET   US   SUPPOSE   I   WAS    TO   BE  SWORN    IN  : 

"  I  Thomas  N.  Burke,  in  the  presence  of  God,  do  pledge  myself  to  my 


122 

country,  that  I  will  use  all  my  abilities  and  influence  in  the  attainment  of  an 
impartial  and  adequate  representation  of  the  Irish  nation  in  Parliament ;  and 
as  a  most  absolute  and  immediate  necessity  for  the  attainment  of  this  chief 
good  of  Ireland,  I  will  endeavor,  as  much  as  lies  in  my  ability,  to  forward 
and  perpetuate  the  identity  of  interests,  the  union  of  rights  and  the  union  of 
power,  among  Irishmen  of  all  religious  persuasions." 

I  pt«test  before  high  Heaven  to-night,  that,  priest  as  I  am,  if  I  was  asked 
in  1779  to  take  that  oath,  I  would  have  taken  it  and  tried  to  keep  it  !  Re- 
member, my  friends,  that  it  was  no  secret  oath  ;  remember  that  it  was  no 
treasonable  oath  ;  remember  that  it  was  an  oath  that  no  man  could  refuse  to 
take,  unless  he  was  a  dishonorable  man  and  a  traitor  to  his  country. 

The  founder  of  this  society  was  Theobald  Wolfe  Tone.  I  admit  that  Mr. 
Tone  was  imbued  with  French  revolutionary  ideas  ;  but  he  certainly  never 
endeavored  to  impress  these  views  upon  the  society  until  Mr.  William  Pitt's, 
(the  Prime  Minister)  influence  forced  that  society  to  become  a  secret  organi- 
zation. 

The  third  object  of  the  Premier  of  the  Government,  namely  :  to  create  an 
Irish  rebellion,  was  accomplished  by  the  cruelties  and  abominations  of  the 
soldiers,  who  were  quartered  at  free  quarters  upon  the  people  and  destroyed 
them  ;  they  violated  the  most  sacred  and  inviolable  sanctity  of  Irish  maiden- 
hood and  womanhood  ;  burned  their  villages,  plundered  their  farms,  demol- 
ished their  houses,  until  they  made  life  even  more  intolerable  than  death  it- 
self, and  compelled  the  people  to  rise  in  the  rebellion  of  '98. 

Yes  ;  I  answer  Mr.  Froude's  a$ertion  that  the  Irish  people  left  the  paths 
of  political  reform  for  political  agitation,  from  agitation  to  conspiracy,  and 
from  conspiracy  to  rebellion.  Now,  you  may  ask  what  advantage  was  this 
to  William  Pitt,  the  Premier,  to  have  conspiracy  and  rebellion  in  Ireland  ? 
I  answer  you,  that  William  Pitt  was  a  great  English  statesman,  and  a  great 
Englishman  statesman  meant  in  those  days  an  enemy  to  Ireland. 

The  object  of  great  statesmanship,  from  time  to  time,  is  the  great  object 
of  concentration.  A  fatal  principle — a  fatal  principle  whenever  it  is  enforced 
against  the  principles  and  time-honored  traditions,  and  the  genius  of  a 
people. 

HE   SAW   THAT   IRELAND   WAS   IN    HARMONY, 

tree  and  independent,  making  her  own  laws  and  consulting  her  own  inter- 
ests. He  said  :  "  This  will  never  do  ;  this  country  will  be  happy  and  pros- 
perous—  it  will  never  do  ;  it  interferes  with  my  business.  What  do  I  care 
for  Ireland  ?  I  only  care  for  the  British  Empire.  I  may  have  to  cross  their 
>urposes."  He  made  up  his  mind  to  destroy  the  Irish  Parliament.  He 
.new  well,  as  long  as  Ireland  was  happy,  peaceable  and  prosperous,  he  never 
:ould  affect  them.  He  knew  it  was  only  through  humiliation  he  could  ac- 
complish the  destruction  of  Ireland.  Ah  !  cruel  man  as  he  was,  he  resolved 
to  plunge  the  country  into  rebellion  and  bloodshed  in  order  to  carry  out  his 
own  imperial  English  State  policy. 

And  yet,  dear  friends,  and  especially  dear  American  friends  —  my  grand 
jury  —  for  I  feel  as  if  I  was  a  lawyer  :  I  feel  as  if  I  was  a  lawyer  engaged  in 
the  cause  of  the  poor  defendant,  whose  case  has  been  in  court  for  many  long 
years  ;  the  plaintiff  is  a  great,  rich,  powerful  woman  ;  the  poor  defendant  has 
nothing  to  commend  her  but  a  heart  that  never  yet  despaired,  a  spirit  that 
never  yet  was  broken,  and  a  loyalty  to  God  and  to  man  that  never  yet  was 
violated  by  one  act  of  treason.  I  ask  you,  the  grand-jury  of  America,  to 
consider  how  easy  it  was  to  conciliate  this  poor  mother,  Ireland — I  mean  to 
make  her  peaceful  and  happy.  He  (Pitt)  himself  had  a  proof  of  it  in  '94. 


P1 
ki 


Suddenly  the  imperious,  magnificent  Premier  of  England  seemed  to  have 
changed  his  mind,  and  he  adopted  a  policy  of  conciliation  and  kindness 
toward  Ireland  ;  he  recalled  the  Irish  lord-lieutenant,  Lord  Westmoreland, 
and  sent  Earl  Fitzwilliam,  who  arrived  there  on  the  4th  of  January,  1795. 
Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  a  man  of  liberal  mind,  and  of  most  excellent  character  ; 
he  felt  kindly  to  the  Irish  people,  and  before  he  left  England  he  made  an  ex- 
press contract  with  William  Pitt,  if  he  was  made  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
that  he  would  govern  the  country  on  principles  of  conciliation  and  kindness. 
He  came,  and  found  in  Dublin  Castle  a  certain  Secretary  Cooke,  and  a  great 
family  by  the  name  of  Beresford,  who,  for  years,  had  monopolized  all  the 
State  offices  and  all  the  emoluments  of  the  State.  He  dismissed  them  all, 
and  sent  them  to  the  "  right  about."  He  surrounded  himself  with  men  of 
liberal  minds  like  himself ;  he  began  by  telling  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  that 
he  would 

LABOR   FOR   THEIR   EMANCIPATION, 

and  sudden  peace  and  joy  spread  throughout  the  nation  —  every  vestige  of 
insurrection  and  rebellion  seemed  to  vanish  out  of  Ireland,  and  happiness 
and  joy,  for  the  time  being,  was  the  portion  of  the  Irish  people.  How  long 
did  it  last  ?  In  an  evil  hour  Pitt  returned  to  his  own  designs.  Fitzwilliam 
was  recalled  on  the  sth  of  March,  and  Ireland  enjoyed  her  peace  for  only 
two  short  months.  When  it  was  found  that  Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  about  to 
be  recalled,  scarcely  a  parish  in  Ireland  that  did  not  send  in  a  petition  to  the 
British  Government  to  leave  them  their  Lord-lieutenant ;  but  all  was  in 
vain.  Pitt  had  made  up  his  mind  to  carry  out  his  own  views.  On  the  day 
that  Lord  Fitzwilliam  left  Dublin  the  principal  citizens  of  Dublin  took  the 
horses  from  his  carriage  and  drew  the  carriage  themselves  down  to  the 
water-side.  All  Ireland  was  in  tears  —  a  whole  nation  was  in  mourning. 
How  easy  it  was,  my  American  friends,  to  conciliate  these  people,  whom 
two  short  months  of  kindness  could  so  change.  It  shows  to  the  English 
Government,  English  Parliament,  and  English  people,  that  if  they  could  only 
realize  to  themselves  the  mine  of  affection,  the  glorious  heart,  and  the 
splendid  gratitude  that  lies  there  in  Ireland,  and  which  they  have  never  ap- 
pealed to  yet,  and  never  touched.  This  turns  the  very  honey  of  human 
nature  into  the  gall  of  bitterness  and  of  hatred.  The  rebellion  broke  out, 
and  it  was,  as  Mr.  Froude  truly  says,  the  victors  took  away  the  old  privileges, 
and  made  the  yoke  heavier.  By  the  old  privileges  Mr.  Froude  means  the 
Irish  Parliament,  which  was  taken  away.  I  hope,  citizens  of  America,  that 
this  English  gentlemstn,  who  has  come  here  to  get  a  verdict  from  you,  will 
be  taught  by  that  verdict^  that  the  right  of  home  legislation  is  not  a  privilege, 
but  the  right  of  every  nation  on  the  earth. 

Then,  in  the  course  of  his  lecture,  going  back  to  strengthen  his  argument, 
he  says  :  "  You  must  not  blame  England  for  being  hard  upon  you  Irishmen. 
She  took  away  your  Parliament ;  she  inflicted  upon  you  a  heavier  yoke  than 
you  bore  before  ;  but  she  could  not  help  it  —  it  was  your  own  fault  ; 

WHAT  MADE    YOU   REBEL?" 

This  is  the  argument  which  the  learned  gentleman  uses.  He  says  the  penal 
laws  never  would  have  been  carried  out,  only  for  the  revolution  in  Ireland, 
in  1600.  Now,  the  revolution  of  1600  meant  the  war  that  Hugh  O'Neill 
made  in  Ulster,  against  Queen  Elizabeth.  According  to  this  learned  histo- 
rian, the  penal  laws  were  the  result,  effect,  and  consequence  of  that  revolu- 
tion. Remember,  he  fixes  that  date  himself,  1600.  Now,  my  friends,  what 
i§  the  record  of  histgry?  The  penal  laws  began  to  operate,  in  Ireland  in 


124 

1534-  In  *$37>  tne  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  the  Primate  of  Ireland,  .who  was 
an  Englishman  by  the  name  of  Cromer,  was  put  into  jail,  and  left  there,  for 
denying  the  supremacy  of  Henry  the  Eighth  over  the  Church  of  God.  Pas- 
sing over  the  succeeding  years  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  reign,  passing  over  the 
enactments  of  Somerset,  under  Edward  the  Sixth,  we  come  to  Elizabeth's 
reign,  and  we  find  that  she  assembled  a  Parliament  in  1560  —  forty  years  be- 
fore Mr.  Froude's  revolution.  Here  is 

ONE  OF  THE  LAWS  PASSED  BY  THAT  PARLIAMENT  : 

"  All  officers  and  ministers,  ecclesiastical  or  lay,"  that  took  in  us,  "  were 
bound  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy."  They  were  bound  to  swear  that 
Queen  Elizabeth  was  Popess.  That  she  was  the  Head  of  the  Church  ;  that  she 
was  the  successor  of  the  Apostles  ;  that  she  was  the  representative  of  St.  Peter, 
and  through  him  of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God — Queen  Elizabeth  !  AH  were 
obliged  to  take  this  oath  under  pain  ©f  forfeiture  and  total  incapacity.  Any 
one  who  disputed  her  claims  to  spiritual  supremacy  was  to  forfeit,  for  the 
offense,  all  his  estate,  real  and  personal,  and  if  he  had  no  estate  that  was  not 
worth  more  than  twenty  pounds,  he  was  put  for  one  year  in  jail  ;  and  for  the 
second  and  third  offenses,  he  was  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  put  to  death. 
These  laws  were  made,  and  commissioners  appointed  to  enforce  them.  Mr. 
Froude  says  they  were  not  enforced  ;  but  we  have  the  acts  of  Elizabeth's 
Parliament  appointing  magistrates  and  officers  to  go  out  and  enforce 
these  laws,  and  these  were  made  forty  years  before  the  revolution  of  1600. 
How,  then,  can  that  gentleman  ask  us  to  regard  the  penal  laws  as  the  effect 
of  that  revolution  ?  In  my  philosophy,  and  I  believe  in  yours,  citizens  of 
America,  the  effect  generally  follows  the  cause.  But  this  English  philo- 
sophical historian  puts  the  effect  forty  years  ahead  of  the  cause.  As  we  say 
in  Ireland,  that  is  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse. 

But  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  tells  us,  if  you  remember,  in  his  second  lecture, 
that  the  penal  laws  of  Elizabeth  were  occasioned  by  the 

POLITICAL   NECESSITY   OF    HER   SITUATION. 

Here  is  the  argument  as  he  gives  it.  He  says  :  "  Elizabeth  could  not  afford 
to  let  Ireland  go  Catholic,  because,  if  Ireland  were  Catholic,  Ireland  must  be 
hostile  to  Elizabeth.  I  may  tell  you  now,  and  I  hope  the  ladies  here  will 
pardon  me  for  mentioning  it,  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  not  a  legitimate 
child.  Her  name,  in  common  parlance,  is  too  vile  for  me  to  utter,  or  for 
the  ladies  present  to  hear.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Elizabeth's  mother  was  not 
Elizabeth's  father's  wife.  The  Queen  of  England  knew  the  aitcient  abhor- 
rence that  Ireland  had  for  such  a  vice.  She  knew  that  abhorrence  grew  out 
of  Ireland's  Catholicity,  and  therefore  she  could  not  allow  Ireland  to  remain 
Catholic,  because  Ireland  would  be  hostile  to  her,  and  Ireland  remained 
Catholic. 

The  only  way  the  amiable  Queen  could  root  out  the  Catholics  in  Ireland 
was  by  penal  laws  ;  making  it  a  felony  for  any  Irishman  to  remain  in  Ireland  a 
Catholic.  Therefore,  the  English  historian  says  "  that  she  passed  the  laws 
because  she  could  not  help  herself,  and  that  she  was  coerced  by  the  necessity 
of  her  situation."  I  ask,  in  reply  to  this  argument  of  Mr.  Froude's,  why,  if 
Elizabeth  were  obliged,  whether  she  would  or  not,  to  pass  these  penal  laws, 
does  he  turn  round  and  say  that  these  laws  were  the  effects  of  Hugh  O'Neill's 
revolution  ?  If  they  were  the  result  of  Elizabeth's  necessity,  then  they  were 
not  the  result  of  the  immortal  Hugh  O'Neill's  brave  effort.  His  next  asser- 
tion is,  "That  after  the  American  war,  England  was  only  too  well  disposed. 


125 

to  do  justice  to  Ireland,"  and  the  proof  lies  here.  He  says  "  that  the  laws 
against  the  Catholics  were  almost  repealed  before  1798."  V«ry  well.  Now 
I  ask  you,  dear  friends,  to  reflect  upon  what  the 

LARGE  MEASURES   OF   INDULGENCE 

to  the  Catholics  were,  of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks.  Here  they  are.  In  the 
year  1771,  Parliament  passed  an  act  to  enable  Catholics  to  take  a  long  lease 
on  fifty  acres  of  bog.  My  American  friends,  yeu  may  not  understand  the 
word  bog.  It  means  a  marsh  which  is  almost  irreclaimable  :  which  you  may- 
drain  and  drain,  until  dooms-  day,  and  it  will  remain  the  original  marsh. 
You  may  sink  a  fortune  in  it,  in  arterial  drainage,  in  top  dressing,  as  we  call 
it  in  Ireland  ;  and  if  it  is  left  a  couple  of  years,  if  you  come  back,  you  will 
find  the  bog  has  asserted  itself  once  more.  However,  my  friends,  the  Par- 
liament  was  kinder  than  you  imagine,  for  whilst  they  granted  to  the  Catho- 
lics a  long  lease  for 

FIFTY   ACRES  OF   BOG, 

they  also  stipulated  that  if  the  bog  was  too  deep  for  foundation,  that  they 
might  take  half  an  acre  of  arable  land,  upon  which  to  build  a  house.  Half 
an  acre  !  For  the  life  of  him,  not  more  than  half  an  acre.  This  holding, 
such  as  it  was,  should  not  be  within  a  mile  of  any  city  or  town.  Oh,  no  ! 
and  mark  this  :  If  half  the  bog  was  not  reclaimed,  that  is  five  -and-  twenty 
acres,  within  twenty  -  one  years,  the  lease  was  forfeited. 

Dear  friends,  the  scripture  tells  us  that  King  Pharoah,  of  Egypt,  was  very 
cruel  to  the  Hebrews,  because  he  ordered  them  to  make  bricks  without  straw, 
but  here  is  an  order  to  the  unfortunate  Irishmen  to  reclaim  twenty  -five  acres 
of  bog,  or  else  give  it  up.  Now,  beggarly  as  this  occasion  was,  the  very 
Parliament  that  passed  it  was  so  much  afraid  of  the  Protestant  ascendancy  in 
Ireland,  that  in  order  to  conciliate  them  for  the  slight  concession,  they 
passed  another  bill,  granting  /io  additional  to  £30  already  for  every  Popish 
priest  duly  converted  to  the  Protestant  religion.  In  October,  1777,  the  news 
reached  England  that  Gen.  Burgoyne  had  surrendered  to  Gen.  Gates.  The 
moment  that  the  news  reached  Lord  North,  who  was  Prime  Minister  of  En- 

land, he  immediately  expressed  an  ardent  desire  to  relax  the  penal  laws  on 

atholics.     In  January,  the  following  year,  1778,  the 

INDEPENDENCE   OF  AMERICA 

was  acknowledged  by  glorious  France.  And  the  moment  that  piece  of  news 
reached  England,  the  English  Parliament  passed  a  bill  for  the  relaxation  of 
the  laws  on  Catholics.  In  May,  of  the  same  year,  the  Irish  Parliament  passed 
a  bill  —  now  mark  !  —  to  enable  Catholics  to  lease  land  —  to  take  a  lease  for 
999  years.  So  it  seems  we  were  to  get  out  of  the  bog  at  last.  They  also,  in  that 
year,  repealed  the  unnatural  penal  law  which  altered  the  succession  in  favor 
of  the  child  that  became  Protestant,  and  gave  hi  m'his  father's  property;  also,  re- 
pealing the  law  for  the  prosecution  of  priests,  and'  for  the  imprisonment  of  Pop- 
ish schoolmasters.  In  the  year  1793,  they  gave  back  to  the  Catholics  the  power 
of  electing  a  member  of  Parliament  —  the  power  of  voting.  And  that  is  what 
Mr.  Froude  calls  the  total  repeal  of  the  law  against  Catholics.  The  Catho- 
lics still  could  not  go  upon  the  bench  ;  could  not  be  magistrates;  and  this  En- 
glish historian  comes  and  says  :  "  You  are  fools  ;  you  were  almost  free." 
Well,  people  of  America,  if  these  be  Mr.  Froude's  notions  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious freedom,  I  appeal  to  you,  for  Ireland,  not  to  give  him  the  verdict, 


gl 
C 


126 

"  THE  INSURRECTION  OF  '98," 

continues  the  learned  gentleman,  "  threw  Ireland  back  into  confusion  and 
misery,  from  which  she  was  partially  delirered  by  the  act  of  union."  The 
first  part  of  that  proposition  I  admit ;  the  second  I  emphatically  deny.  I  ad- 
mit that  the  unsuccessful  rebellion  of  '98  threw  Ireland  back  into  a  state  of 
misery.  Unsuccessful  rebellion  is  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  that  can  be- 
fall a  nation,  and  the  sooner  Irishmen  and  Irish  patriots  understand  this,  the 
better  it  will  be  for  them  and  their  country.  I  emphatically  deny,  that  by 
the  act  of  union  there  was  any  remedy  for  these  miseries  ;  that  it  was  any 
healing  remedy  whatever  for  the  wrongs  of  Ireland  ;  that  it  was  any  thing 
in  the  shape  of  a  benefit  or  blessing.  I  assert  that  the  union  of  1800,  by 
which  Ireland  lost  her  Parliament,  was  a  pure  curse  for  Ireland  from  that  day, 
and  nothing  else,  and  it  is  an  evil  that  must  be  remedied  if  the  grievances  of 
Ireland  are  ever  to  be  redressed.  I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  wholesale  brib- 
ery and  corruption  by  which  the 


the  political  apostate,  carried  that  detestable  act  of  union.  Mr.  Froude  had 
the  good  taste  to  pass  by  the  dirty  subject  without  touching  it,  and  I  can  do 
nothing  better. 

He  says  :  "It  was  expected  that  whatever  grievances  Ireland  complained 
of  would  be  removed  by  legislation  after  the  act  of  union."  It  was  expected  ; 
it  was  quite  true.  Even  Catholics  expected  something.  They  were  prom- 
ised, in  writing,  by  Lord  Cornwallis  that  Catholic  emancipation  would 
be  given  them,  if  they  only  accepted  the  Union.  Pitt  himself  assured  them 
that  he  would  not  administer  the  Government  unless  Catholic  emancipation 
was  made  a  Cabinet  measure.  The  honor  of  Pitt,  the  honor  of  England  was 
engaged  ;  the  honor  of  the  brave,  though  unfortunate,  Lord  Cornwallis,  .was 
engaged.  But  the  Irish  —  as  Tom  Moore  says,  "  I  admire  the  hopes  that 
leave  me  ;"  —  they  were  left  to 

MEDITATE   IN   BITTERNESS    OF  SPIRIT 

upon  the  nature  of  English  faith.  Now  let  me  introduce  an  honored  name 
that  I  shall  return  to  by  and  by.  At  that  time,  the  Parliament  of  Ireland 
was  bribed  with  money  and  with  titles,  and  the  Catholic  people  were  bribed 
by  promised  emancipation  after  they  would  sanction  the  union. 

Then  it  was  that  a  young  man  appeared  in  Dublin,  speaking  for  the  first 
time  against  the  union,  in  the  name  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  that 
young  man  was  the 

GLORIOUS   DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

Two  or  three  of  the  bishops  gave  a  kind  of  tacit  negative  assent  to  the  meas- 
ure, in  the  hope  of  getting  Catholic  emancipation.  I  need  hardly  tell  you, 
my  friends,  that  the  Catholic  lords  of  the  Pale  were  only  too  willing  to  pass 
any  measure  that  the  English  Government  required.  O'Connell  appeared 
before  the  Catholic  Committee  in  Dublin;  and  here  are  his  words.  Remem- 
ber, they  are  the  words  of  the  people,  and  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland.  He 
said  :  "  It  is  my  sentiment,  and  I  am  satisfied  it  is  the  sentiment  not  only  of 
every  gentleman  that  hears  me,  but  of  the  Catholic  people  of  Ireland,  that 
they  are  opposed  to  this  injurious,  insulting,  and  hated  measure  of  union. 
And  if  its  rejection  was  to  bring  upon  us  the  renewal  of  the  penal  laws,  we 
would  boldly  meet  the  proscriptive  oppression,  and  throw  ourselves  once 
more  on  the  mercy  of  our  Protestant  brethren,  before  we  will  give  our  assent 


127 

to  the  political  murder  of  our  country."  "  I  know,"  he  says,  "  I  do  know 
that  although  exclusive  advantages  may  be  ambiguously  held  forth  to  the 
Irish  Catholic  to  seduce  him  from  the  sacred  duty  that  he  owes  to  his  country, 
yet  I  know  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  will  remember  that  they  have  a 
country,  and  they  will  never  accept  of  any  advantage,  as  a  sect,  of  that  which 
would  depose  and  destroy  them  as  a  people."  Shade  of  the  great  departed  !  You 
never  uttered  truer  words.  Shade  of  the  great  O'Connell,  every  true  Irish- 
man, priest  and  layman  subscribes  to  this  glorious  sentiment,  wherever  that 
Irishman  is  this  night. 

Now  Mr.  Froude  goes  on,  in  an  innocent  sort  of  way.  He  says,  "  It  is 
strange,  that  after  the  Union  was  passed,  that  the  people  of  Ireland  were  still 
grumbling  and  complaining.  Yet  they  had  no  foundation  for  their  com- 
plaints ;  they  were  not  treated  unjustly."  Here  are  his  words  :  Good  God  ! 
people  of  America  !  what  idea  can  this  gentleman  have  of  justice?  What 
loss  did  the  Union,  which  he  admired  so  much,  and  which  he  declares 
that  England  will  maintain,  bring  to  Ireland?  What  gain  did  it  bring  to 
Ireland,  and  what  loss  did  it  inflict  on  her  ?  I  answer  from  history.  The 
gain  to  Ireland  was  absolutely  nothing,  and  I  ask  you  to  consider  two  or 
three  of  the  losses. 

First  of  all,  remember,  my  friends,  that  Ireland,  before  the  Union,  had  her 
own  national  debt,  as  she  had  her  own  Parliamentary  establishment.  She 
was  a  nation. 

THE  NATIONAL  DEBT  OF  IRELAND, 

in  1793,  did  not  amount  to  over  three  millions  of  money.  In  the  year  1800 , 
the  year  of  the  Union,  the  national  debt  amounted  to  over  28,000,000  ot  , 
money.  They  increased  it  nine-fold  in  six  years.  How?  I  will  tell  yon. 
England  had  in  Ireland,  for  her  own  purposes,  at  the  time  of  the  Union, 
126,500  soldiers.  Pretty  tough  business,  that,  of  keeping  Ireland  down  in 
those  days.  She  made  Ireland  pay  for  every  man  of  them.  She  did  not  pay 
a  penny  of  her  own  money  for  them.  In  order  to  carry  the  Union,  England 
spent  enormous  sums  of  money  for  bribes  to  spies  and  informers,  and  to 
members  of  Parliament.  She  took  every  penny  of  the  money  out  of  the 
Irish  Treasury.  There  were  eighty-four  rotten  boroughs  disfranchised  at  the 
time  of  the  Union,  and  England  paid  to  those  who  owned  those  boroughs, 
or  who  had  the  nomination  of  them,  actually  paid  them  one  million  two 
hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling,  for  their  loss  —  the  loss  being  the  nomina- 
tions—  the  loss  by  the  proprietor  of  the  corrupt  influence  in  returning  these 
members  to  Parliament.  O'Connell,  speaking  on  this  subject  some  years 
later,  says  :  "  Really,  it  was  strange  that  Ireland  was  not  asked  to  pay  for 
the  knife  with  which,  twenty  years  later,  Castlereagh  cut  his  throat." 

If  the  debt  of  Ireland  was  swollen  from  3,000,000  before  the  Union  to 
26,000,000,  I  ask  you  to  consider  what  followed.  We  now  come  to  the 
period  after  the  Union.  Mark,  my  friends.  In  January,  1801,  you  may  say 
the  year  of  the  Union,  the  debt  of  England  was  450,000,000  and  a  half 
pounds  sterling,  and  to  pay  that  debt  they  required  £17,708,800,  consequent- 
ly, they  had  to  raise  by  taxation  £18,000,000  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  debt  of 
450,000,000  in  that  year.  Such  was  the  condition  of  Ireland.  In  1817,  six- 
teen years  after,  the  same  debt  of  England  had  risen  from  450,000,000  to 
735,000,000 — nearly  double];  and  they  had  an  annual  debt  of  28,000,000  odd 
to  pay.  So  yon  see  they  doubled,  their  national  debt  in  the  sixteen  years 
through  which  Pitt  had  waged  war  with  Napoleon.  They  were  obliged  to 
subsidize  and  to  pay  Germans,  Hessians,  and  all  sorts  of  people,  to  fight 
against  France.  At  one  time  William  Pitt  was  supporting  the  whole  Aus- 


128 

trian  army.  The  Austrians  had  the  men,  but  no  money.  Now  mark  this  : 
In  Ireland,  the  debt  in  1801,  was  28,000,000  and  a  half,  and,  consequently, 
the  annual  taxation  was  ^1,250,000.  In  the  year  1817,  the  same  Irish  debt, 
which  sixteen  years  before  was  only  28,ooo,ooo,«was  now  ^112,704,000,  and 
the  taxes  amounted  to  ^4,105,000.  In  other  words:  In  sixteen  years  the 
debt  of  England  was  doubled,  but  the  debt  of  Ireland  was  made  four  times 
as  much  as  it  was  in  the  year  that  the  Union  was  passed.  How  did  that 
happen?  It  happened  from  the  very  fact  that,  being  united  to  England, 
having  lost  their  Parliament,  the  English  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  took 
and  kept  the  money  and  the  Irish  accounts,  and  the  Irish  kept  the  bogs. 
Ireland  lost  the  privilege  of  keeping  her  own  accounts.  And  this  is  the  ac- 
count he  brought  against  Ireland  in  1817. 

IRELAND   WAS   SO   LIGHTLY    BURDENED   WITH    DEBT 

at  tne  time  of  the  Union,  as  compared  with  England,  that  the  English  did 
not  ask  us  when  they  united  the  Parliament  with  theirs  ;  they  did  not  pre- 
sume to  ask  us ;  they  had  not  the  presumption  to  ask  us  to  take  share  and 
and  share  alike  in  the  taxes.  Why  should  they  ?  We  only  owed  20,000,000, 
and  they  owed  450,000,000.  Why  should  we  be  asked  to  pay  the  interest  on 
their  debt  ?  They  were  rich  and  could  bear  that  taxation  ;  Ireland  was  poor 
and  she  could  not  bear  it.  Ireland  was,  consequently,  much  more  lightly 
taxed  than  England.  It  was  very  much  easier  to  pay  interest  on  ^26,000,000 
than  on  400,000,000.  But  there  was  an  agreement  made^with  Castlereagh  by 
the  Irish  Parliament.  It  was  this.  He  said  :  "  That  if  the  Irish  national 
debt  came  up  to  one-seventh  of  the  national  debt  of  England,  then  we  will 
throw  it  all  in  together,  and  tax  them  share  and  share  alike.  The  object  of 
running  up  the  Irish  debt  was  to  bring  it  up  within  one-fourth  of  the  English 
<iebt.  This  they  accomplished  in  1817.  Then  the  Irish  and  the  English 
were  taxed  indiscriminately,  and  they  all  alike  ;  we  were  obliged  to  pay  the 
taxes  for  the  interest  on  the  450,000,000  of  debt  that  the  crown  of  England 
had  incurred  before  the  Union  had  taken  place. 

"  The  people,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "were  not  treated  unjustly."  Ah! 
But  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  consider  the  advantages  of  the  Union  ;  you  had  the 
same  commercial  privileges  that  the  English  had."  To  this  I  answer,  in  the 
words  of  the 

ILLUSTRIOUS,    HONEST  AND   HIGH-MINDED  JOHN    MITCHELL. 

"  It  is  true,"  says  Mr.  Mitchell,  "  that  the  laws  regulating  trade  are  the  same 
in  the  two  islands.  Ireland  may  export  even  woolen  cloth  to  England  ; 
she  may  import  her  own  tea  from  China  and  sugar  from  the  Barbadoes. 
The  law  which  made  these  acts  penal  offenses  no  longer  exists.  Why? 
Because  they  are  no  longer  needed.  England  is  fully  in  possession,  and  by 
the  operation  of  these  old  laws  Ireland  was  utterly  ruined.  England  has  the 
commercial  marine  ;  Ireland  has  it  to  create.  England  has  the  manufactur- 
ing machinery  and  skill  of  which  Ireland  was  deprived,  by  express  laws  for 
that  purpose.  England  has  the  current  of  trade  established  so  strongly  in  her 
own  channels,  while  Ireland  is  left  dry  to  create  or  recover,  at  this  day,  those 
great  industrial  and  commercial  resources,  and  that  in  the  face  of  wealthy 
rivals  that  are  already  in  full  possession,  is  manifestly  impossible  without  one 
or  the  other  of  these  two  conditions,  namely  :  the  immense  command  of 
capital  or  effective  protective  duties.  But  by  the  Union  our  capital  is  drawn 
away  to  England,  and  by  the  Union  we  were  deprived  of  the  power  of  im- 
posing protective  duties." 


It  was  to  this  very  end  that  the  Union  was  forced  upo.n  Ireland  by  treach- 
ery. "Don't  unite  with  us,  sir,"  says  the  honest  old  man,  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson,  when  addressed  on  the  subject  of  unity,  in  his  day. 

DON'T    UNITE    WITH    US,    WE    SHALL    ROB    YOU. 

In  the  very  first  year  after  the  Union  was  passed,  Mr.  Foster  stated,  in  the 
English  House  of  Parliament,  that  there  was  a  falling  off  in  the  linen  trade 
of  Ireland  of  5,000,000  less  of  yards  exported.  The  same  gentleman,  three 
years  later,  stated,  that  in  1800  the  net  produce  of  the  Irish  revenue  was 
more  than  2,800,000,  while  the  debt  was  only  ^25,000,000.  Three  years 
later,  after  three  years'  experience  of  the  Union,  the  debt  was  increased  to 
^53,000,000,  and  the  revenues  had  diminished  by  ^£11,000.  Ireland  was 
deserted.  That  absenteeism  that  was  the  curse  of  Ireland  iii  the  days  of 
Swift  had  so  increased  by  the  Union  that  Dublin  became  almost  a  deserted 
city,  and  all  the  cities  in  Ireland  had  the  appearance  and  became  as  places 
in  the  wilderness.  At  this  very  day,  in  Dublin,  the  Duke  of  Leinster's  city 
palace  is  turned  into  a  museum  of  Irish  industry  ;  Marlborough  House,  on 
the  same  street,  has  become  a  draper's  shop  ;  Tyrone  House  is  a  schoolhouse. 
The  house  of  the  Earl  of  Beresford  was  pulled  down,  a  few  years  ago,  to 
build  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  meeting-house  on  the  place.  Charlemont  House 
was  sold,  about  six  months  before  I  came  to  America,  and  it  is  now  the  head 
office  of  the  Board  of  Works  ;  and  Belvidere  House  is  a  convent.  So  fashion, 
trade,  commercial  activity,  intellectual  enterprise,  political  interest  —  every 
thing  has  gone  to  London,  and  Ireland  may 

FOLD    HER    HANDS    AND    SIGH    OVER    THE    RUIN 

that  is  left  to  her  now.  And  that  is  the  result  of  the  Union.  The  crumbling 
liberties  of  Dublin  attest  the  decay  and  ruin  of  Ireland  ;  the  forsaken  harbors 
of  Limerick  and  Galway  tell  of  the  destruction  of  her  commerce  ;  the  palace 
of  Dublin,  abandoned  to  decay,  announces  no  longer  the  residence  of  the 
nobility  ;  the  deserted  custom-houses  tell  of  the  income  transferred  elsewhere. 
What  do  we  get  in  England  for  all  this?  Absolutely  nothing.  Every  Irish 
question  goes  now  to  London  to  be  debated,  and  the  moment  an  Irish  mem- 
ber stands  up  in  the  House,  the  first  thing  he  expects  is  to  be  coughed  down, 
sneered  down,  or  crowed  down,  unless,  indeed,  he  has  the  lungs  of  an 
O'Connell,  and  turns  upon  them  like  an  African  lion,  and,  with  a  roar,  puts 
down  their  beastly  bellowing. 

Pitt  promised  emancipation.  Six  months  after  the; Union  was  passed,  he 
retired  from  office  on  the  pretense,  indeed,  that  the  King  would  not  grant  em- 
ancipation, and  would  notkeephis  word.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the  true 
reason  why  Pitt  retired  was  that  his  continental  policy  had  failed.  The  peo- 
ple of  England  were  tired  of  his  wars,  and  were  clamoring  for  peace.  He 
was  too  proud  to  sign  even  a  temporary  peace  with  France,  and  he  retired 
in  sullen  pride  and  disgust.  He  retired  under  the  pretext  that  he  would  not 
be  allowed  to  carry  Catholic  emancipation.  Some  time  later,  after  the  Ad- 
dington  administration  was  broken  up,  Mr.  Pitt  returned  again  to  be  the 
Premier  of  England.  Not  one  word  escaped  from  him  then  about  Catholic 
emancipation,  and  he  resisted  it  until  his  death.  He  was  as  great  an  enemy 
to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  as  ever  poor,  old,  foolish,  mad  George  IV  was. 
And  it  was  only  after  twenty-nine  years  of  heroic  effort  that  the 

GREAT  O'CONNELL  RALLIED  THE  IRISH  NATION; 
and  he  succeeded  for  a  time  in  uniting  all  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  as  one 


13° 

man,  as  well  as  a  great  number  of  our  nobled-hearted  Protestant  fellow-Irish- 
men. And  when  O'Connell  came  and  knocked  at  the  doors  of  the  British 
Parliament  with  the  hand  of  a  United  Irish  people;  when  he  spoke  with  the 
voice  of  eight  millions,  then  and  only  then,  even  as  the  walls  of  Jericho 
crumbled  at  the  sound  of  Joshua's  trumpet,  did  the  old,  bigoted  threshold  of 
the  British  House  of  Commons  tremble  while  its  doors  burst  open  and  let  in 
the  gigantic  Irishman  that  represented  eight  millions  of  the  people  of  Ireland. 
The  English  historian  goes  on  to  say  that 

ENGLAND  GRANTED  CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION   WILLINGLY. 

She  granted  it  as  a  man  would  yield  up  a  bad  tooth  to  the  dentist.  O'Con- 
nell put  the  forceps  into  that  false,  old  mouth;  the  old  tyiant  wriggled  and 
groaned;  the  bigote  profligate,  who  then  disgraced  England's  crown,  shed 
is  crocodrile  tears  upon  the  bill;  the  eyes  that  were  never  known  to  weep 
over  the  ruin  of  female  virtue,  the  face  that  never  was  known  to  change  color 
in  the  presence  of  any  foul  deed  or  accusation  of  vice,  grew  pale,  and  George 
IV  wept  with  sorrow  that  he  had  to  sign  it.  The  man  who  had  conquered 
Napoleon  upon  the  field  of  Waterloo,  the  man  who  was  declared  to  be  the 
invincible  victor  and  the  greatest  of  warriors,  stood  there  with  the  bill  in  his 
hands,  and  said  to  the  King  of  England:  "  I  would  not  grant  it,  your  Ma- 
jesty, any  more  than  you;  but  it  is  forced  from  you  and  me.  You  must  either 


sign  that  paper  or  prepare  for  civil  war  and  revolution  in  Ireland!" 

I  regret  to  be  obliged  to  say  it,  but  really,  my  friends,  the  history  ot  my 
native  land  proves  to  me  that  England  never  granted  any  thing  from  love,  or 


CRAVEN   FEAR   OF  CIVIL  WAR, 

or  of  some  serious  inconvenience  to  herself.  Now,  having  arrived  at  this 
point,  Mr.  Froude  glances  in  a  masterly  manner  over  the  great  questions  that 
have  taken  place  since  the  day  that  emancipation  was  demanded.  He  speaks 
words  the  most  eloquent  and  compassionate  over  the  terrible  period  of  '46 
and  '47 — words,  reading  which  brought  tears  to  my  eyes,  words  of  compas- 
sion that  he  gave  to  the  people  who  suffered,  for  which  I  pray  God  to  bless 
him  and  reward  him.  He  speaks  words  of  generous,  enlightened,  statesman-  ' 
like  sympathy  for  the  peasantry  of  Ireland,  and  for  these  words,  Mr.  Froude, 
if  you  were  an  Englishman  ten  thousand  times  over,  I  love  you.  I  now  at- 
tempt  to  speak  of  the  future  of  Ireland.  Perhaps  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for 
me  to  attempt ;  yet,  I  suppose  that  all  that  we  have  been  discussing  in  the 
past  must  have  some  reference  to  the  future.  For,  surely,  the  verdict  that 
Mr.  Froude  looks  for  is  not  a  mere  verdict  of  absolution  for  past  iniquities. 
He  has  come  here  —  though  he  is  not  a  Catholic  —  he  has  come  to  America, 
like  a 

MAN  GOING  TO  CONFESSION, 

and  he  cries  out  loudy,  "  We  have  sinned  !  we  have  sinned  !  we  have  griev- 
ously sinned  !"  The  verdict  which  he  calls  for  must,  surely,  regard  the  future 
more  than  the  past ;  for  how,  in  the  name  of  God,  can  this  great  historian, 
or  any  other  man,  ask  a  verdict  justifying  the  iniquity  and  heart-rending  rec- 
ord of  cruelty  and  injustice,  the  traditions  of  robbery  and  bloodshed  which 
we  have  suffered  ?  My  friends,  there  must  be  a  future.  What  is  that  future  ? 
Well,  my  friends —  first  of  all,  my  American  Grand  Jury,  you  must  remember 
that  I  am  only  a  monk,  not  a  man  of  the  world,  and  I  do  not  understand 
much  about  these  things;  and  there  are  wiser  heads  than  mine,  and  I  will 


gtve  you  their  opinion.     There  is  a  particular  class  of  men  who  love  Ireland 

—  love  Ireland  truly,  and  love  her  sincerely,  and  think,  in  their  love  or  Ire- 
land, that  if  ever  she  is  to  be  freed  it  is  by  insurrection,  by  rising  in  arms  — 
men  who  hold  that  Ireland  is  enslaved,  if  you  will.    Well,  if  the  history  which 
Mr.  Froude  has  given,  and  which  I  have  attempted  to  review,  if  it  teaches  us 
any  thing,  it  teaches  us,  as  Irishmen,  lhat  there  is  no  use  appealing  to  the 
sword,  or  to  armed  insurrections  in  Ireland.     Mr.  Froude  says  that,  to  suc- 
ceed, there  are  two  things  necessary,  namely  ;   union  as  one  man,  and  a 

DETERMINATION  NOT  TO  SHEATHE  THAT  SWORD 

until  the  work  is  done.  I  know  that  I  would  earn  louder  plaudits,  citizens  of 
America,  and  speak  a  more  popular  language  in  the  ears  of  my  auditors,  if  I 
were  to  declare  my  adhesion  to  this  class  of  Irishmen.  But  there  is  not  a 
living  man  that  loves  Ireland  more  dearly  than  I  do.  There  are  those  who 
may  love  her  more  fervently,  and  some  love  her  with  greater  distinction. 
But  there  is  no  man  living  that  loves  Ireland  more  tenderly  or  more  sincerely 
than  I  do.  I  prize,  citizens  of  America,  the  good-will  of  my  fellow-Irishmen; 
I  prize  it  next  to  the  grace  of  God.  I  also  prize  the  popularity  which,  how- 
ever unworthily,  I  possess  with  them.  But  I  tell  you,  American  citizens,  for 
all  that  popularity,  for  all  that  good-will,  I  would  not  compromise  one  iota  of 
my  convictions  ;  nor  would  I  state  what  I  do  not  believe  to  be  true.  I  do  not 
believe  in  insurrectionary  movements  in  a  country  so  divided  as  Ireland. 

There  is  another  class  of  Irishmen  who  hold  that  Ireland  has  a  future  —  a 
glorious  future  ;  that  that  future  is  to  be  wrought  out  in  this  way.  They  say 

—  and,  I  think,  with  a  good  right  —  that  wealth,  acquired  by  industry,  brings 
with  it  power  and  political  influence.     They  say,  therefore,  to  the  Irish  at 
home,    "  Try  and  accumulate  wealth  ;  lay  hold  of  industry  ;  develop  the  re- 
sources of  your  country  ;  try  in  the  meantime  to  effect  that  blessing  of  union, 
without  which  there  never  can  be  a  future  for  Ireland.     That  union  can  be 
effected  by  largeness  of  mind,  by  generosity  and  urbanity  toward  your  fellow- 
citizens  ;  by  rising  above  the  miserable  bigotry  that  carries  religious  differen- 
ces and  religious  hatreds  into  relations  of  life  —  that  don't  belong  to  religion. 

"  Meantime,"  they  say  to  the  men  of  Ireland, 

"  TRY  TO  ACQUIRE    PROPERTY  AND  WEALTH  ; 

and  this  can  only  be  done  by  peaceful,  assiduous  industry  :  and  that  industry 
can  only  be  exercised  so  long  as  a  country  is  at  peace,  so  long  as  there  is  a 
truce  to  violent  political  agitation."  Then  these  men  say  again  to  the  Irish- 
men in  America  :  "  Men  of  Ireland  in  America,  men  of  Irish  birth,  men  of 
American  birth  but  Irish  blood,  we  believe  that  God  has  largely  intrusted  the 
destinies  of  Ireland  to  you.  America  demands  of  her  citizens  only  energy, 
industry,  truthfulness,  temperance,  obedience  to  the  law. 

"  Accordingly,  the  man  that  has  these  can  not  fail  to  realize  the  future,  and 
a  glorious  future,  in  this  grand  Republic.  And  if  you  are  faithful  to  America 
in  these  respects,  America  will  be  faithful  to  you.  And  in  proportion  as  the 
grand  Irish  element  in  America  rises  in  wealth  it  will  rise  in  political  influence 
and  power  —  a  political  influence  and  power  which  in  a  few  years  is  destined 
to  overshadow  the  whole  world,  and  to  bring  about  peace,  justice,  and  a  far 
greater  revolution  in  the  cause  of  honor  and  the  cause  of  humanity  than  has 
ever  been  effected  by  the  sword.  This  is  the  programme  of  a  second  class  of 
Irishmen.  Now,  I  tell  you  candidly,  that  to  this  programme  I  give  my 
heart  and  soul. 


132 

You  will  ask  me,  what  about  separation  from  England?  Well,  that  is  a 
tickleish  question,  gentlemen  and  ladies.  I  dare  say  you  will  remember  that 
when  Charles  Edward,  the  son  of  the  pretender  to  the  throne  of  England, 
was  alive,  there  was  a  toast  which  the  Jacobite  gentleman  used  to  give.  It 
was  this :  [Here  the  speaker  raised  a  glass  of  water  which  stood  on  the 
table.] 

"  God  bless  the  King,  our  noble  faith's  defender  ; 
Long  may  he  live;  and  down  with  the  Pretender. 
But  which  may  be  Pretender  —  which  be  King, 
God  bless  us  all  —  that's  quite  another  thing  !" 

DECAY    OF   NATIONS. 

And  yet,  with  the  courage  of  an  old  monk,  I'll  tell  you  my  mind  upon  this 
very  question.  History  tells  us  that  empires,  like  men,  run  the  sycle  of  the 
years  of  their  life,  and  then  die.  No  matter  how  extended  their  power,  no 
matter  how  mighty  their  influence,  no  matter  how  great  their  wealth,  no 
matter  how  invincible  their  army,  the  day  will  come,  the  inevitable  day,  that 
brings  with  it  decay  and  disruption. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  empire  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  ;  thus  it  was  with 
the  mighty  empire  of  the  Assyrians  ;  thus  it  was  with  the  Egyptians  of  old  ; 
thus  with  Greece,  and  thus  with  Rome.  Who  would  have  imagined,  for  in- 
stance, one  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago,  before  the  Goths  first  stood  be- 
fore the  walls  of  Rome- —  who  would  .have  imagined  that  the  greatest  power, 
that  was  to  sway  the  whole  Roman  Empire,  would  be  the  little,  unknown 
island, .flnng  out  in  the  Western  Ocean,  known  only  as  the  last  spot  of  earth — 
the  ultima  thule  —  the  Island  of  Tin,  in  the  far  ocean.  This  was  England. 
Well,  the  sycle  of  time  has  come  to  pass.  Now,  my  friends,  England  has 
been  a  long  time  at  the  top  of  the  wheel.  Do  you  imagine  she  will  always 
remain  there?  I  do  not  want  to  be  one  bit  more  disloyal  than  Lord  Mac- 
aulay ;  and  he  describes  a  day  when  a  traveler  from  New  Zealand  "  will 
take  his  stand  on  a  broken  arch  of  London  Bridge,  and  sketch  the  ruins  of 
St.  Paul's." 

Is  England  rising,  or  falling?  Is  England  to-day  what  she  was  twenty 
years  ago  ?  England,  twenty  years  ago,  in  her  first  alliance  with  Napoleon, 
had  her  finger  in  every  pie  in  Europe.  Lord  John  Russell,  and  Lord  Palmers- 
ton,  were  busy-bodies  of  the  first  order.  England,  to-day,  has  no  more  to 
say  in  the  affairs  of  Europe  than  the  Emperor  of  China  has.  You  see  it  in 
the  fact — I  am  only  talking  philosophy  —  you  see  it  in  the  fact  that  the  three 
great  Emperors  of  Germany,  Austria  and  Prussia  came  together  in  Berlin  to  fix 
the  map  of  Europe,  and  didn't  ask  England  in  to  know  what  she  had  to  say 
about  it. 

The  army  of  England  to-day  is  nothing  —  a  mere  cipher.  The  German 
Emperor  can  bring  his  1,200,000  men  into  the  field.  England  can  scarcely 
muster  200,000.  An  English  citizen  —  a  loyal  Englishman  —  wrote  a  book 
called  "The  Battle  of  Dorking,"  in  which  he  describes  a  German  army 
marching  on  London.  This  Englishman  was  loyal ;  and  why  should  I  be 
more  loyal  than  he? 

England's  navy  is  nothing.  Mr.  Reed,  Chief  Constructor  of  the  British 
Navy,  has  written  an  article  in  a  London  paper,  in  which  he  declares  and 
proves,  that  at  this  moment  the  British  fleet  would  be  afraid  to  go  into  Rus- 
sian waters,  not  being  able  to  meet  the  Russians.  Why  should  I  be  more 
loyal  than  Mr.  Reed?  An  empire  begins  to  totter  and  decay  when  it  aban- 


133 

dons  its  outlying  provinces,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Empire  when  it 
abandoned  Britain.  England  to-day  says  to 

CANADA   AND    AUSTRALIA  : 

"  Oh  take  your  government  into  your  own  hands  ;  I  don't  want  to  be  bothered 
with  it  any  more  !" — England  that,  eighty  years  ago,  fought  for  the  United 
States  bitterly  as  long  as  she  could  put  a  man  into  the  field.  How  changed  it 
is.  Secondly,  an  empire  is  crumbling  into  decay  when  she  begins  to  buy  off 
her  enemies,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when  she  began  to  buy  off 
the  Scythians,  the  Dacians  and  other  barbaric  forces  that  were  rising  upon 
her. 

England,  a  few  days  ago,  was  presented  with  a  little  bill  by  America.  She 
said  : 

"  WHY,  JONATHAN,  I    OWE   YOU    NOTHING." 

And  John  Bull  buttoned  up  his  pocket,  and  swore  he  would  not  pay  a  cent. 
Then  America  said:  "  Look  here,  John,  I  don't  like  this  ;"  and  she  took  out 
the  sword,  and  put  the  hilt  in  one  hand  and  the  blade  in  the  other,  and  she 
said:  "Which  end  do  you  choose?"  John  Bull  paid  the  bill.  My  friends, 
it  looks  very  like  as  if  the  day  of  Lord  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  was  rap- 
idly approaching. 

In  that  day,  my  position  is,  Ireland  will  be  mistress  of  her  own  destinies 
with  the  liberty  that  will  come  to  her,  not  from  man,  but  from  God,  whom 
she  never  deserted.  There  is  another  nation  that  understands  Ireland,  whose 
statesmen  have  always  spoken  words  of  brave  encouragement,  of  tender 
sympathy,  and  of  manly  hope  for  Ireland  in  her  dark  days  —  and  that  nation 
is  the  United  States  of  America — the  mighty  land,  placed,  by  the  Omnipotent 
hand,  between  the  far  East  on  the  one  side,  to  which  she  stretches  out  her 
glorious  arms  over  the  broad  Pacific,  while,  on  the  other  side,  she  sweeps, 
with  uplifted  hand,  over  the  Atlantic  and  touches  Europe.  A  mighty  land, 
including,Mn  her  ample  bosom,  untold  resources  of  every  form  of  commercial 
and  mineral  wealth  ;  a  mighty  land,  with  room  for  300,000,000  of  men,  and 
millions  of  the  oppressed,  all  the  world  over,  flying  to  her  more  than  imperial 
bosom,  there  to  find  liberty,  and  the  sacred  rights  of  civil  and  religious  free- 
dom. 

America  will  require  an  emporium  for  her  European  trade,  and  Ireland 
lies  there  right  between  her  and  Europe,  with  her  ample  rivers  and  vast 
harbors,  able  to  shelter  the  vessels  and  fleets.  America  may  require  a  great 
European  storehouse,  a  great  European  hive  for  her  manufactures.  Ireland 
has  enormous  water-power,  now  flowing  idly  to  the  sea,  but  which  yet,  in  a 
future  day,  may  be  busy  in  turning  the  wheels  set  upon  their  streams  by 
American  and  Irish  capital  and  industry.  If  ever  that  day  comes,  if  ever 
that  union  comes,  it  will  be  no  degradation  to  Ireland  to  join  hands  with 
America.  She  does  not  enslave  her  States.  She  accepts  them  on  terms  of 
glorious  equality  ;  she  respects  the  rights  of  the  people. 

CONCLUSION. 

Now  that  I  have  done  with  this  subject,  and  with  Mr.  Froude,  I  have  one 
word  to  say  before  I  retire.  If,  during  the  course  of  these  .five  lectures,  one 
single  word  personally  offensive  to  this  distinguished  gentleman  has  escaped 
my  lips,  I  take  that  word  back  now  ;  I  apologize  to  him  before  he  asks  me, 
and  beg  to  assure  him  that  such  a  word  never  came  willingly  from  my  mind 
or  from  my  heart.  He  says  he  loves  Ireland.  I  believe,  according  to  his 


134 

light,  he  does  love  Ireland.  Our  light  is  very  different  from  his;  still, 
Almighty  God  will  judge  every  man  according  to  his  light. 

When  the  reiterated  cheering  for  Father  Burke  had  subsided,  the  Very 
Rev.  Father  Starrs,  Vicar  General  of  the  diocese,  addressed  the  audience 
briefly  as  follows  : 

"  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN — I  have  merely  a  few  words  to  say  to  you 
before  we  separate  this  evening.  You  all  know  that  this  is  the  last  lecture  of 
the  Very  Rev.  Father  Burke,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Froude,  the  English  historian. 
And  I  know  very  well  that  you  all  must  feel  satisfied  with  the  manner  in- 
which  he  has  replied  to  the  lecture  of  that  learned  gentleman.  I  now  move 
a  vote  of  thanks  to  the  Very  Rev.  Father  Burke,  for  the  able,  dignified  and 
learned  manner  in  which  he  has  made  that  reply." 

Voices — I  second  the  motion. 

When  the  Vicar  General  put  the  question  as  seconded,  the  building  rang 
with  the  ready  and  unanimous  "Aye"  that  responded  from  the  voices  and 
hearts  of  the  immense  audience ;  and  thus  closed,  for  the  present,  one  of  the 
rarest  intellectual  treats  that  has  ever  been  the  good  fortune  of  an  American 
audience  to  enjoy.  We  notice  that  Mr.  Froude  will  reply  to  Father  Burke, 
and  other  critics,  on  Saturday  evening,  the  soth  inst.,  when,  after  Father 
Burke 's  return  from  the  South,  we  may  expect  another  telling  rejoinder. 


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